flPPAPYOr  ppiMPPTOM 


MAR    16    2004 


THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


%le]'UoiU'hnil ,    1862- 

1951. 
A  social  theory  of  religioui 

education 


A  SOCIAL  THEORY 

OF 

RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


A  SOCIAL  THEORY 

OF 

RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION 


BY 

GEORGE  ALBERT  COE 

PB0FEB80B  IN  THE  CNION  THSOLOGICAL  SEMINABT,  NEW   TOBE  CITT 


LIBRARY  OF  PRINCETON 


MAR    16    2004 


THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1919 


COPTHIOHT,  1917,   BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  October;  1917 


TO 
HARRY    F.    WARD 

WHO    SEES 

AND 

MAKES  OTHERS  SEE 


FOREWORD 

What  consequences  for  religious  education  follow  from  the     ^ 
now  widely  accepted  social  interpretation  of  the  Christian  mes- 
sage ?     The  present  work  is  an  attempt  to  answer  this  question. 

The  answer  is  not  simple.  For  the  social  message  does  not 
require  us  merely  to  insert  this  or  that  new  duty  into  our  present 
scheme  of  living,  but  also  to  judge  every  detail  of  conduct  from 
a  higher  point  of  view.  We  are  required  to  organize  the  whole 
of  life  upon  a  different  level. 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  new  meaning  that  this  gives 
to  e very-day  affairs  did  not  change  our  outlook  upon  child  life. 
If  we  are  to  be  logical  and  practical  in  our  social  Christianity, 
we  must  revise  our  policies  with  respect  to  children  at  least  as 
much  as  our  policies  with  respect  to  adults.  The  chapters 
that  follow  undertake  to  show  the  directions  that  this  revision 
will  need  to  take. 

As  we  proceed,  it  will  appear  that  the  whole  perspective  of 
religious  education  undergoes  a  change.  The  central  purpose, 
to  begin  with,  grows  more  specific  because  the  nature  of  good- 
ness is  seen  to  be  as  concrete  as  the  neighbor  who  lives  next 
door.  Christian  experience  comes  out  of  the  clouds,  because 
in  our  dealings  with  our  brother  whom  we  have  seen  we  are  deal- 
ing with  the  Father  whom  we  have  not  seen — yes,  we  here  come 
into  relation  with  what  is  deepest  in  his  character  and  purposes. 
To  Christian  ears  these  statements  do  not  sound  strange,  per- 
haps, yet  when  they  are  applied  to  the  religious  life  of  the 
young  they  do  sing  a  new  melody.  A  profounder  significance 
attaches  to  the  will  of  a  child,  and  especially  to  his  relations 
with  persons,  whether  children  or  adults.  ^ 

All  the  plans  and  methods  of  religious  education  have  now 
to  be  reorganized  with  reference  to  these  social  relations  and 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

experiences.  A  new  measure  is  provided  for  the  material 
that  goes  into  the  curriculum  of  instruction.  Organizations 
that  undertake  to  educate,  whether  the  family  or  the  church, 
meet  a  different  test  from  that  which  has  been  traditional. 
Theological  and  ecclesiastical  types  take  on  new  meaning,  and 
they  encounter  demands  that  they  have  not  always  foreseen. 
The  educational  relations  between  state  and  church,  likewise, 
have  a  different  look  when  we  approach  them  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  thoroughly  socialized  religion.  Not  less  true  is  it 
that  emphasis  now  shifts  from  one  part  of  educational  psychology 
to  another. 

Through  my  whole  discussion  there  runs  a  conviction  that 
within  Protestantism  there  is,  or  is  coming  to  be,  a  distinctive 
religious  principle,  that  of  a  divine-human  industrial  democracy. 
"My  Father  worketh  even  until  now,  and  I  work."  I  believe 
that  here  the  Christian  religion  contains  a  permanently  progres- 
sive element,  and  therefore  a  motive  for  self-criticism  as  well 
as  for  criticism  of  "the  world."  Religious  education,  conse- 
quently, is  here  thought  of  not  merely  as  a  process  whereby  an- 
cient standards  are  transmitted,  but  also  as  having  a  part  in 
the  revision  of  standards  themselves. 

Another  conviction  that  controls  my  discussion  is  that  educa- 
tional organization  and  methods  are  not  static  tools,  like 
saws  and  hammers,  which  are  indifferent  to  the  structures  that 
they  build,  but  living  and  moving  parts  of  the  collective  life. 
A  democracy  cannot  afford  to  use  in  its  public  schools  the 
methods  that  an  autocratic  state  finds  adapted  to  its  purposes. 
When  the  purposes  of  society  are  transformed,  education  must 
be  made  over.  Protestantism  cannot  make  Protestants  of  its 
children  by  the  methods  of  Catholic  teaching.  A  divine- 
human  democracy  cannot  grow  up  through  educative  processes 
that  have  in  their  nostrils  the  breath  of  autocracy. 

These  are  themes  of  high  intellectual  interest.  They  are 
also  religious  issues  of  the  greatest  import.  They  have  a  direct 
bearing  upon  even  the  ordinary  duties  of  religious  educators. 
The  humblest  worker  will  do  better  work  if  he  knows  the  why 
and  the  whither  of  it  than  he  will  if  he  merely  follows  some 


FOREWORD  ix 

prescription.  Therefore  I  hope  that  this  book  of  mine  will  be 
found  practically  helpful  by  those  who  bear  the  heat  and  the 
burden  of  the  day  in  the  schools  of  the  church,  as  well  as  by 
those  who  guide  congregations  or  whole  communions. 

As  my  study  of  this  theme  has  progressed,  I  have  been  more 
and  more  conscious  of  the  magnitude  of  the  problem,  and  of 
its  unending  ramifications.  I  cannot  hope  to  have  said  the 
last  word,  nor  to  have  escaped  error,  but  I  dare  to  hope  that 
others  will  be  stimulated  to  face  the  issues  and  to  declare  their 
own  convictions.  I  trust  also  that  my  faults  will  be  judged  in 
the  light  of  the  fact  that  this  is  the  first  attempt  to  work  out  in 
a  systematic  way  the  consequences  that  will  follow  for  religious 
education  when  it  is  controlled  by  a  fully  social  interpretation  of 
the  Christian  message. 

While  these  chapters  have  been  in  progress  the  wail  of  chil- 
dren in  the  lands  at  war  has  been  in  my  ears,  a  wail  for  the 
fathers  of  whom  they  have  been  bereft,  a  wail  for  bread,  a  wail 
for  a  decent  world  in  which  to  grow  up.  To  my  thinking  it  is 
a  cry  from  all  the  children  of  the  world  for  the  sort  of  education 
that  faces,  and  understands,  the  great  madness  that  is  abroad, 
and  not  only  understands,  but  also  knows  the  resources  of 
human  nature  and  of  religion.  Even  while  I  have  been  writing 
about  educating  children  in  the  love  that  loves  to  the  utter- 
most, I,  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  have  gone  to  war  I 
I  am  so  bound  into  one  with  my  neighbors  that  I  cannot,  if  I 
would,  act  as  a  mere  individual;  and  my  neighbors  and  I,  who 
constitute  the  United  States  of  America,  are  so  bound  up  with 
neighbors  beyond  our  national  boundaries  that  our  moral 
destiny  is  intertwined  with  theirs.  We  and  they  must  rise  to- 
gether, or  we  shall  not  rise  at  all.  Forward,  out  of  nationalism, 
with  its  limitations  upon  brotherhood,  into  world  society !  But 
we  are  partly  of  the  past,  "red  in  tooth  and  claw,"  and  only 
partly  of  the  ideal  future.  With  our  hands  we  fight  our  broth- 
ers; with  our  hearts  we  abhor  fighting.  'Wretched  men  that 
we  are  1    Who  shall  deliver  us  out  of  the  body  of  this  death  ? ' 

The  future  of  society  depends  upon  the  sort  of  social  education 
that  we  think  it  worth  while  to  provide. 


X  FOREWORD 

Any  reader  who  is  familiar  with  present  movements  in  educa- 
tional thought  will  perceive,  as  this  work  proceeds,  how  much 
I  owe  to  writers  who  have  had  in  mind  the  public  school  rather 
than  religious  education.  I  am  indebted  most  of  all  to  John 
Dewey,  who  is  foremost  among  those  who  have  put  education 
and  industrial  democracy  into  a  single  perspective. 

George  A.  Coe. 

Glendora,  California, 
May  12,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


PAoa 

Foreword vii 


INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTEB 

I.    Why  So  Much  Theorizing? 3 


PART  I 

THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  IN  MODERN   EDUCATION 

II.    General  Exposition  of  the  Social  Stand- 
point            13 

III.  The   Philosophical   Setting   of   the   New 

Social  Ideals  in  Education     25 

IV.  The  Place  of  the  Individual  in  a  Socialized 

Education 38 

PART  II 

THE    SOCIAL    INTERPRETATION    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

REQUIRES    SOCIAL    RECONSTRUCTION    IN 

RELIGIOUS    EDUCATION 

V.    The  Aims  of  Christian  Education    ....      53/^ 

VI.    The  First  Essentials  of  an  Educational 

Plan 64 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAQB 

VII.    The  Educative  Process  is  Religious  Experi- 
ence        74 

VIII.    The  Church  as  Educator 85 

IX.    A  New  Theory  of  the  Curriculum  ....      97 

PART  III 

the  psychological  background  of  a  social- 
ized RELIGIOUS  education 

X.  The  Social  Nature  of  Man 119 

XI.  Children's  Faith  in  God 138 

XII.  The  Religious  Limitations  of  Children     .  147 

XIII.  The  Struggle  with  Sin 164 

XIV.  The  Learning  Process  Considered  as  the 

Achieving  of  Character 184 

PART  IV 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  A  SOCIALIZED  RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION 

XV.    The    Christian    Reorganization    of    the 

Family 207 

XVI.    The  Church  School 226 

XVII.    Educational  Relations  between  State  and 

Church 248 

XVIII.    The  Denominational  Department  of  Relig- 
ious Education      266 

XIX.    Beyond  the  Denominations     283 


CONTENTS  xiii 
PART  V 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

EXISTING  TENDENCIES  IN  CHRISTIAN  EDUCATION 
VIEWED   FROM   THE   SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

XX.    The  Roman  Catholic  Type 295 

XXI.    The  Dogmatic  Protestant  Type 304 

XXII.    The  Ritualistic  Protestant  Type     ....  316 

XXIII.  Educational  Tendencies  of  Evangelicalism  324 

XXIV.  Educational  Tendencies  of  Liberalism  .   .  335 

Classified  Bibliography 343 

Index 357 


INTRODUCTION 


CHAPTER  I 
WHY  SO  MUCH  THEORIZING? 

Have  we  theory  enough  abready?  Whoever  makes  a  re- 
flective choice  between  educational  ends,  and  then  determines 
by  systematic  analysis  what  are  in  general  the  means  whereby 
the  chosen  ends  can  be  most  certainly  and  most  economically 
reached,  has  a  theory  of  education  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
term  "theory"  is  used  in  this  work.  A  theory  of  education, 
then,  is  simply  knowledge  of  what  we  as  educators  want  and 
how  to  get  it. 

A  committee  was  discussing  plans  for  a  training  institute  for 
workers  in  religious  education.  "What  we  want,"  said  one 
member  of  the  committee,  "is  something  practical.  We  don't 
want  theories."  To  this  another  committeeman  replied: 
"  What  have  you  against  theories  ?  We  have  practice  already, 
and  practice  is  what  makes  all  our  trouble.  Theory  is  the  thing 
we  need.  We're  perishing  for  want  of  it!"  Doubtless  the 
first  of  these  men  meant  to  stand  for  applied  knowledge  as 
against  ineffective  thinking,  while  the  second  meant  to  stand 
for  applied  knowledge  as  against  ineffective  practice.  Both 
really  wanted  theory  in  the  present  sense  of  the  term. 

Of  theory  in  this  sense  we  can  never  have  too  much.  That 
we  have,  in  fact,  altogether  too  little  of  it — that  our  workers 
do  not  discriminate  with  sufficient  care  either  ends  or  means, 
do  not  think  enough  upon  what  they  are  about — is  certain. 
An  enthusiastic  young  student  of  religious  education,  upon  a 
visit  of  observation  to  a  certain  Sunday  school,  asked  the  super- 
intendent: "  What  is  the  purpose  of  this  school  ?  "  The  super- 
intendent hesitated,  requested  that  the  question  be  repeated. 


4  THE  NEED  OF  THEORY 

hemmed  and  hawed,  and  finally  replied:  "Well,  what  do  you 
think  it  ought  to  be?"  The  simple  fact  is  that  we  are  doing  a 
great  many  things  because  they  have  been  done  before  rather 
than  because  we  have  a  reason  for  doing  them.  If  we  are 
asked  for  a  reason  we  commonly  give  one  that  is  so  general  as 
to  be  without  point.  We  say,  for  example,  that  our  aim  is  to 
make  our  pupils  Christians,  but  if  we  are  then  required  to  say 
whether  we  aim  to  make  all  of  them  Christians  immediately, 
on  the  present  Sunday,  or  only  by  and  by,  and  just  what  we 
mean  by  a  pupil-Christian,  it  turns  out  that  our  apparently 
clear  end  is  foggy  after  all. 

Nor  is  the  case  any  better  with  our  notions  of  the  means  to 
be  employed.  Which  is  the  most  certain  and  the  most  eco- 
nomical way  to  produce  such  or  such  a  change  in  this  or  that 
Sunday-school  class  ?  Are  you  pursuing  your  present  methods 
because  you  have  any  reason  to  suppose  that  they  are  the  most 
effective  possible  ?  And  when  the  work  of  a  year  or  of  a  series 
of  years  is  done,  how  do  you  definitely  know  to  what  extent 
you  have  attained  your  purpose  ?  Questions  like  these  answer 
themselves.  Our  work  is  famishing,  and  our  pupils  are  perish- 
ing, because  we  have  not  enough  theory. 

Ineffective  practice  produces  defective  theory,  and  per- 
petuates ineffectiveness  thereby.  It  is  no  more  true  that  a 
poor  theory  leads  to  poor  practice  than  that  poor  practice 
leads  to  poor  theory.  Theories  of  education  have  all  arisen 
within  practice;  they  are  attempts  to  think  out  what  already 
exists.  The  reason  why  we  stop  to  think  is,  indeed,  that  we 
are  not  altogether  satisfied  with  things  as  they  are,  but  yet 
we  do  not  invent  a  better  state  of  things  "just  out  of  our  heads." 
No,  we  make  improvements  by  mixing  a  little  that  is  new 
with  much  that  is  old,  and  this  mixing  occurs  in  our  thinking 
as  well  as  in  our  practice.  That  is,  more  or  less  of  yesterday's 
practice  is  always  taken  into  to-day's  thinking  as  a  presupposi- 
tion, or  not-yet-analyzed  premise,  and  then  this  thinking  is 
used  to  justify  the  very  practice  from  which  it  is  derived.  Now, 
some  of  yesterday's  faults  always  escape  attention;  some  of  them 
are  ever  being  accepted  as  virtues.    For  example,  methods  of 


THE  NEED  OF  THEORY  5 

family  (iisclpllne  that  defeated  their  own  aims  have  dominated 
theories  of  such  discIpHne.  Many  a  parent  has  conscientiously 
made  goodness  unattractive  to  his  children,  and  then  recom- 
mended that  all  parents  go  and  do  likewise !  Many  a  progres- 
sive-minded Sunday-school  worker  unconsciously  bends  his 
standards  to  fit  Sunday  schools  as  they  are.  He  has  a  theory, 
but  it  is  not  sufficiently  critical. 

The  consequence  of  this  is  that  the  cause  of  religious  educa- 
tion requires  the  repeated  reopening  of  matters  that  seem  to 
be  already  settled.  The  reason  is  not  that  revolutions  are 
desirable,  but  that  our  thinking,  being  under  the  influence  of 
our  own  defective  past,  never  reaches  a  point  where  it  can  prop- 
erly say:  "Here  I  have  reached  finality;  here  revision  will 
never  be  necessary.' '  This  is  the  pride  that  goes  before  a  fall. 
The  spirit  of  true  theorizing  is  humble.  It  says  to  itself:  "In 
all  probability  my  present  views  of  religious  education  are  a 
mixture  of  truth  and  error.  Let  me,  then,  scrutinize  them  once 
more,  and  may  the  succession  of  scrutinizers  never  fail  I" 

The  main  problem  is  how  to  make  Christian  education 
sufficiently,  as  well  as  efficiently,  Christian.  We  should  stum- 
ble into  a  total  misconception  if  we  were  to  think  of  a  theory 
of  religious  education  as  an  attempt  to  control  religion  from 
outside  itself,  as,  for  example,  by  mere  speculation.  No,  it 
is  an  attempt  to  judge  our  religious  performances  from  within 
religion.  Christian  education  is  to  be  thought  of  as  through 
and  through  the  Christian  religion  in  operation.  Its  methods 
are  to  be  scrutinized  and  revised  from  the  sole  point  of  view 
of  religious  effectiveness.  Its  aims  also  are  to  be  weighed  in 
religious  scales,  and  no  others. 

Not  only  do  old  methods  come  to  us  bringing  hay,  wood,  and 
stubble  along  with  precious  metal,  but  the  same  is  true  of  old 
purposes.  They,  also,  as  well  as  methods,  have  to  be  "  trued 
up"  from  time  to  time,  partly  because  we  forget  something 
that  came  to  us  in  the  hour  of  spiritual  vision,  partly  because 
insight  Into  the  meaning  of  life  does  not  attain  fixity  in  any 
generation.  There  ar«  depths  in  the  Christian  message  that 
our  fathers'  plummets  did  not  sound ;  there  are  depths  that  will 


6  THE  NEED  OF  THEORY 

remain  unknown  until  generations  yet  to  be  born  shall  ask  their 
own  fresh  questions.  Accordingly,  when  we  reflect  upon  the 
existing  aims  of  Chfistian  education  with  a  view  to  revising 
them,  we  are  engaged  in  an  attempt  to  make  them  more  Chris- 
tian. We  are  not  satisfied  to  become  more  efficient  upon  yes- 
terday's religious  level;  we  aspire  to  raise  the  level  itself.  Our 
problem  is  to  make  Christian  education  as  Christian  as  possible. 
The  application  of  this  remark  to  the  situation  of  the  churches 
to-day  is  unmistakable.  The  aims  and  methods  of  Christian 
education,  as  of  church  life  in  general,  that  this  generation 
inherited  were  predominantly  mdividualistic.  We  have  been 
so  taught  as  to  think  of  the  great  salvation  as  a  rescuing  of  in- 
dividuals, each  by  himself,  from  the  guilt  and  the  power  of  sin, 
and  of  establishing  them,  each  by  himself,  in  the  way  of  right- 
eousness. When  Canon  Fremantle  gave  us  the  phrase  "the 
world  as  the  subject  of  redemption"  we  had  to  think  twice  be- 
fore we  could  see  just  what  it  meant.  For  most  Christians 
were  still  thinking  of  the  increase  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  terms 
of  a  mere  census,  a  mere  count  of  individuals  rescued  out  of  an 
evil  world.  But  our  generation  has  come  to  see  that  the  re- 
demptive mission  of  the  Christ  is  nothing  less  than  that  of 
transforming  the  social  order  itself  into  a  brotherhood  or  family 
of  God.  We  are  not  saved,  each  by  himself,  and  then  added 
to  one  another  like  marbles  in  a  bag  or  like  grains  of  sand  in 
a  sand  pile.  A  saved  society  is  not  made  by  any  such  external 
process.  We  are  members  one  of  another  in  our  sins,  and  we 
are  members  one  of  another  in  the  whole  process  of  being  saved 
from  sin.  I  cannot  go  alone  either  toward  or  away  from  the 
kingdom,  for  it  is  my  relation  to  some  one  else,  a  relation  of 
help  or  of  hinderance,  that^determines  the  direction  that  my  own 
character  is  taking.  "  In  this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest, 
and  the  children  of  the  devil:  Whosoever  doeth  not  righteous- 
ness is  not  of  God,  neither  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother. 
For  this  is  the  message  that  ye  heard  from  the  beginning,  that 
we  should  love  one  another."  For  us  of  the  present  generation 
the  duty  of  making  Christian  education  sufl[iciently  Christian 
will  mean  bringing  it  into  line  with  this  social  message. 


THE  NEED  OF  THEORY  7 

Love  as  an  inclusive  law  for  education  has  not  been  worked 
out  in  theory  or  tried  in  practice.  This  is  an  astonishing 
thing  to  say,  but  it  is  strictly  true.  We  have  endeavored  to 
include  love  within  education  as  one  item  among  many,  but  we 
have  not  taken  it  as  the  higher  and  inclusive  conception  by 
which  to  determine  our  aims  and  by  which  to  test  our  methods. 
We  have  been  accustomed  to  start  the  educative  process  out- 
side of  the  act  of  loving,  say  in  some  dogma  or  religious  rite, 
expecting  somehow  to  get  inside  love  at  some  later  time.  We 
have  not  thought  of  method  as  systematized  love  producing 
its  like,  that  is,  as  the  divine  social  order,  already  started  on 
earth,  and  here  and  now  giving  children  a  place  and  an  incentive 
to  grow  within  itself.  We  have  not  conceived  religious  educa- 
tion as  itself  a  part  of  the  campaign  for  the  social  righteousness 
that  the  law  of  love  requires,  or  as  an  actual  initiation  into  the 
social  relations  that  belong  to  the  citizens  of  the  kingdom. 
Rather,  we  have  assumed  that  the  campaign  for  social  righteous- 
ness is  an  affair  of  adults  exclusively.  We  have  even  hesitated 
to  bring  it  to  church  with  us  lest  it  should  disturb  reposeful 
contemplation  of  God.  As  if  we  could  contemplate  the  Father 
without  thinking  about  that  upon  which  his  heart  is  set,  or  as 
if  he  himself  could  have  peace  of  mind  only  by  taking  a  vaca- 
tion from  the  rest  of  the  family ! 

Here  and  there,  in  fragmentary  ways,  we  have  begun,  it 
is  true,  to  experiment  with  lessons  that  touch  upon  love  in  action. 
Social-service  activities,  moreover,  have  here  and  there  be- 
come a  regular  part  of  the  educative  procedure.  But  as  yet 
these  are  additions  to  presocial  religious  education,  or  pallia- 
tives of  it,  rather  than  an  attempt  to  socialize  the  whole  con- 
trol. Thorough  socialization  will  require  a  fresh  approach  to 
the  curriculum  as  a  whole.  It  will  require  us  to  re-examine 
the  organization  of  religious  education  in  order  to  see  whether 
the  social  relations  in  which  the  child  is  here  already  placed 
do  themselves  train  him  in  active  love  and  in  methods  of 
co-operation.  It  will  require  us  to  scrutinize  every  de- 
tail of  teaching  method  to  see  what  sort  of  social  relation 
it  involves  between  teacher   and   taught,   and   between   pupil 


8  THE  NEED  OF  THEORY 

and  pupil.  Here,  surely,  is  need  for  a  theory  of  religious  edu- 
cation. 

The  theory  of  public  education  is  undergoing  a  trans- 
formation that  is  of  the  utmost  significance  for  the  churches. 

The  old  assumptions  of  public  education,  like  those  of  religious 
education,  were  individualistic.  The  day  school  was  expected 
to  put  the  pupil  into  possession  of  certain  tools  (as  reading 
and  writing),  and  to  impart  a  certain  minimum  amount  of 
useful  knowledge  (as  geography),  all  of  which  was  thought  of 
as  preparing  him  to  live  as  an  individual.  To-day  we  cannot 
think  of  the  public  schools  as  having  any  smaller  task  than 
that  of  preparing  young  citizens  for  living  together.  Moreover, 
we  are  engaged,  in  both  theory  and  practice,  in  bringing  school 
training  closer  and  closer  to  the  every-day  occupation  of  a  citi- 
zen, his  labor  for  a  livelihood. 

The  growth  of  the  social  idea  and  of  the  industrial  idea  in 
public  education  is  significant  for  the  churches  in  several  ways. 
In  the  first  place,  humanitarianism  is  getting  a  new  organ,  one 
that  promises  to  become  immensely  efficient.  The  state  can 
hardly  train  its  citizens  in  the  art  of  living  together  without 
teaching,  more  or  less,  the  brotherhood  that  is  of  the  heart. 
Nor  can  this  teaching  go  very  far  before  it  awakens  thought 
upon  the  ancient  injustices  that  persist  in  society.  Moreover, 
when  the  school,  with  this  growing  social  outlook  and  inlook, 
is  brought  close  to  the  industries,  it  is  bound,  sooner  or  later, 
to  interpret  to  our  whole  people,  either  intentionally  or  other- 
wise, the  meaning  of  "  the  food  which  perisheth,"  the  significance 
of  labor,  of  income,  and  of  wealth.  All  these  are  ancient  in- 
terests of  the  Christian  preacher,  and  they  are  present,  vital 
concerns  for  Christian  teaching,  whether  of  adults  or  of  chil- 
dren. 

What  shall  the  churches  do,  then,  with  respect  to  these  new 
developments  in  the  theory  of  public  education?  How  can 
we  be  unmoved  by  what  is  going  on?  If  we  really  believe  in 
the  axioms  of  Christian  living,  we  cannot  be  indifferent.  Nay, 
we  whose  consciences  are  just  now  being  pricked  by  the  neglected 
social  elements  in  our  religion,  if  we  have  even  a  moderate 


THE   NEED   OF   THEORY  9 

amount  of  practical  sense,  must  take  our  place  as  citizens  be- 
side those  who  have  seen  a  social  vision  in  public  education. 
We  must  try  to  understand  what  the  vision  saith;  we  must 
support  and  encourage  the  reformers  in  their  hard  task,  and  we 
must  gladly  tax  ourselves  for  public  education  as  we  have  never 
taxed  ourselves  before. 

But  we  shall  not  empty  out  of  the  church  into  the  state 
school  the  whole  function  of  social  education.  Rather,  we  shall 
define  and  realize  more  definitely  than  ever  before  the  educa- 
tional implications  of  the  old  faith  that  God  himself  is  love. 
Gladly  co-operating  with  every  one  who  endeavors  to  put  the 
love  of  one's  neighbor  into  education,  we  shall  go  on  to  probe 
the  educational  significance  of  the  two  great  commandments 
in  the  Christian  faith.  For  us  there  must  be  a  theory  and  a 
practice  in  which  the  love  of  God  to  us  and  our  love  to  him  are 
not  separated  from,  but  realized  in,  our  efforts  toward  ideal 
society,  the  family  or  kingdom  of  God.  Such  a  theory  of 
Christian  education  we  have  not  as  yet. 

Four  components  of  educational  theory.  The  divisions 
adopted  by  each  writer  upon  this  subject  are  likely  to  depend 
more  or  less  upon  his  notion  of  convenience  in  exposition. 
But  the  following  components  will  be  found  in  one  or  another 
form  in  any  broad  analysis: 

(1)  An  indication  of  the  kind  of  society  that  is  regarded  as 
desirable. 

(2)  A  conception  of  the  original  nature  of  children. 

(3)  A  conception  of  the  sorts  of  individual  experience  that  will 
most  surely  and  economically  produce  in  such  children  the  kind 
of  sociality  that  is  desired. 

(4)  A  statement  of  at  least  the  more  general  standards  and 
tests  by  which  one  may  judge  the  degree  to  which  these  sorts 
of  experience  are  being  provided  by  any  educational  institu- 
tion or  process. 

All  four  of  these  parts  of  a  complete  theory  will  be  found  in 
the  following  pages,  though  not  in  this  precise  order.  In  a 
general  way.  Chapters  II  to  V,  inclusive,  concern  the  first 
point;  Chapters  X  to  XIII,  the  second;  Chapters  VI  to  IX  and 


10  THE  NEED  OF  THEORY 

Chapter  XIV,  the  third,  and  the  remainder  of  the  book  the 
fourth.  But  I  have  made  no  effort  to  schematize  my  treat- 
ment. Rather,  I  have  endeavored  to  be  concrete,  even  though 
thereby  problems  crowd  together  somewhat,  and  even  though 
the  same  problem  appears  more  than  once. 


PART  I 

THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  IN   MODERN 

EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  II 

GENERAL   EXPOSITION   OF    THE   SOCIAL 
STANDPOINT 

Various  uses  of  the  term  education.  Education,  in  the 
broadest  sense  of  the  term,  takes  place  wherever  a  plastic 
mind  acquires  a  set  of  any  kind.  It  is  often  said,  for  example, 
that  a  child  receives  much  of  his  education  from  contact  with 
nature— from  falls  and  bruises,  obstacles  and  achievements, 
and  the  beauty  of  natural  scenery. 

In  a  less  broad  sense,  education  lies  in  the  contribution  made 
by  society  to  the  set  of  a  mind.  Again  and  again  has  it  been 
pointed  out  that  only  through  association  with  his  elders  can  a 
child  attain  to  civilized  life  at  all.  The  total  difference  that 
such  association  makes  in  the  organization  and  outlook  of 
his  mind  may  be  regarded  as  the  education  that  he  receives. 
The  ways  in  which  society  forms  an  individual  are,  however, 
in  large  measure  unsystematic  and  even  unintended.  The 
"social  inheritance"  of  an  American  child,  for  example,  in- 
cludes the  influence  upon  him  of  all  such  things  as  sights  and 
sounds  upon  the  street;  newspapers;  public  amusements; 
political  contests;  business  and  social  customs;  waves  of  public 
opinion;  home  conditions — indeed,  the  influence  of  every  man 
and  of  every  "man  way"  that  he  meets. 

As  far  as  these  things — any  of  them — are  controlled  for  the 
'purpose  of  giving  a  set  to  young  minds,  we  have  education  in 
the  third  and  strictly  technical  sense. 

It  is  with  education  thus  technically  understood  that  the 
present  book  is  primarily  concerned.  Often,  indeed,  we  shall 
find  ourselves  analyzing  the  unintended  influence  of  men  and 
women  upon  children,  but  always  for  the  sake,  ultimately,  of 
more    clearly    defining    our    deliberate    purposes.     Deliberate  ~^ 

13 


14  THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

educational  purpose  underlies  many  undertakings  besides 
schools.  A  family  is  an  educational  institution.  The  same 
can  be  said  of  certain  phases  of  the  public  library,  the  art  mu- 
seum, and  the  natural  history  collection  of  to-day.  For  they 
arrange  their  possessions  and  advertise  them  in  part  with  the 
young  in  mind,  and  they  even  provide  trained  instructors. 
The  children's  room,  the  children's  adviser,  and  the  story 
hour  in  the  modern  library  are  educationally  eloquent.  The 
playground  movement  likewise  is  educational  in  the  strict 
sense,  for  it  accepts  the  axiom  that  facilities  for  play  should 
be  so  organized  that  the  players  will  form  socially  valuable 
habits. 

The  position  of  the  churches  in  this  constellation  will  have 
our  attention  after  a  time.  But  even  this  partial  and  merely 
representative  list  of  the  educational  institutions  of  modern 
society  would  be  defectively  representative  if  it  did  not  men- 
tion juvenile  courts  and  new  types  of  law  concerning  children 
and  youth.  When  a  child  violates  a  law  or  an  ordinance,  an 
enlightened  legal  system  no  longer  merely  inflicts  pain  and 
deprivation  upon  him  because  of  his  past,  but  considers  how  to 
form  him  into  a  good  citizen.  To  this  end,  physical,  mental, 
and  social  diagnosis  is  employed  to  discover  the  causes  of  the 
delinquency,  and  then  the  offender  is  sentenced  to  he  educated 
by  the  most  skilful  methods  that  science  can  devise !  This 
blending  of  the  conception  of  justice  with  that  of  education  is 
extending  itself  to  various  parts  of  law.  The  abolition  of  child 
labor,  and  the  restriction  of  labor  in  the  adolescent  years,  have 
an  avowedly  educational  motive,  as  have  ordinances  that 
regulate  the  relations  of  children  to  the  streets  and  to  public 
amusements.  We  are,  in  fact,  moving  toward  the  notion  that 
society,  wherever  it  is  in  contact  with  children  and  youth, 
should  be  a  consciously  educational  force — in  short,  that  the 
young  should  be  constantly  at  school  merely  by  virtue  of 
their  presence  in  our  civilization. 

Society  is  not  merely  one  educator  among  many;  it  is  the 
prime  educator  within  all  educational  enterprises.  If  teach- 
ers,   parents,    librarians,    story-tellers,    playground   directors. 


THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  15 

judges  in  juvenile  courts,  and  legislators  who  press  for  child- 
labor  laws  will  but  reflect  upon  their  educational  enterprise, 
they  will  perceive  that  it  is  not  their  own.  They  act  as  agents 
for  society.  This  means  not  only  that  they  labor  toward  social 
ends,  but  also  that  the  power  that  does  the  work  is  one  or 
another  social  influence  operating  through  them.  This  is 
obvious  in  the  case  of  all  who  are  employed  by  state  or  church, 
but  it  is  true  of  the  others  also.  A  parent  teaching  his  child 
a  grammatical  form,  or  manners  at  table,  or  a  standard  of 
moral  conduct,  is  himself  at  the  moment  under  the  control  of 
his  group  in  respect  both  to  what  he  teaches  and  to  the  fact  that 
he  teaches  anything  at  all.  Moreover,  the  effectiveness  of  his 
teaching  depends  in  large  measure  upon  the  existence  of  a  social 
environment  that  backs  it  up.  In  a  profound  sense,  then, 
the  educator  in  all  education  is  society.  This  proposition  is 
not  invalidated  by  the  incompleteness  of  our  social  integration 
— our  divisions  into  parties,  social  classes,  and  churches — 
with  the  resulting  ambiguity  of  the  term  "society."  For  in 
each  of  these  groupings  the  educational  worker  is  moved  by 
his  group  consciousness,  and  he  endeavors  to  give  effect  to  the 
things  that  bind  him  to  his  fellows,  be  the  fellowship  narrow  or 
broad. 

"Unfolding  the  powers  of  the  child"  is  an  inadequate  con- 
ception of  the  work  of  education.  Since  society  is  the  educa- 
tor, we  may  ask  next.  What  is  society  about  when  it  educates  ? 
It  is  dealing,  of  course,  with  unfolding  powers  or  growth.  But 
every  child  has  many  powers,  better  and  worse.  It  is  the 
essence  of  education  to  discriminate  between  them,  and  while 
promoting  the  growth  of  some,  to  prevent  the  growth  of  others. 
The  same  distinction  has  to  be  made  when  we  meet  the  state- 
ment that  the  aim  is  to  help  children  toward  "  self-realization," 
for  behind  this  statement  lies  the  unexpressed  assumption  that 
there  are  different  sorts  of  self  that  an  individual  may  become, 
and  that  education  must  give  the  advantage  to  some  of  these 
as  against  others. 

What  education  does  is,  in  a  word,  to  bring  the  child  and 
society  together.    It  increases  one's  participation  in  the  com- 


16  THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

mon  life.  It  puts  a  child  into  possession  of  the  tools  of  social 
intercourse,  such  as  language  and  numbers;  opens  his  eyes  to 
treasures  of  literature,  art,  and  science  that  society  has  grad- 
ually accumulated  through  generations;  causes  him  to  appre- 
ciate such  social  organizations  as  the  state,  and  develops  habits 
appropriate  thereto;  prepares  him  to  be  a  producer  in  some 
socially  valuable  field  of  labor,  and  evokes  an  inner  control 
whereby  he  may  judge  and  guide  himself  in  the  interest  of 
social  well  being. 

Education  aims  at  "social  adjustment  and  social  effi- 
ciency." This  phrase  represents  the  strong  reaction  of  re- 
cent years  against  all  formal  conceptions  of  education,  that  is, 
conceptions  that  involve  no  notion  of  guiding  the  young  in  the 
social  application  of  the  powers  that  education  brings  out.  To 
define  the  aim  of  education  as  the  unfolding  of  children's 
powers  is  like  saying  that  the  purpose  of  a  railroad  is  to  cause 
cars  to  move  from  one  place  to  another.  What  the  cars  carry 
and  whither  they  are  going  are  the  important  considerations. 
The  strains  that  have  developed  within  our  industrial  and  civic 
life  since  the  coming  of  machine  manufacture,  steam  transporta- 
tion, and  the  massing  of  the  populace  in  cities  have  compelled 
us  to  see  that  the  attitudes  and  the  outlook  of  children  with 
respect  to  their  fellow  men  are  the  prime  concern  of  schools. 
At  the  same  time,  poverty  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  increas- 
ing specialization  of  occupations  and  of  industrial  and  commer- 
cial processes  on  the  other,  have  convinced  educationists — that 
is,  those  who  investigate  education  and  promote  educational 
standards — that  every  child  ought  to  receive  assistance  in  the 
selection  of  his  occupation,  and  also  specific  preparation  for 
skilful  work  in  it.  The  more  democratically  minded  among 
us  are  coming  to  think  of  the  future  in  terms  of  industrial  de- 
mocracy, an  organization  of  producers  governed  by  producers. 
Hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  progressive  schoolmen  are  largely 
occupied  at  the  present  moment  with  problems  of  occupational 
training  and  vocational  guidance. 

Scarcely  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago  educationists  were 
still  disavowing  industrial  ends,  which  they  distinguished  from 


THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  17 

those  of  "general"  culture.  Manual  training  was  in  some  of 
the  schools  for  the  sake  of  formal  mental  discipline  and  the 
teaching  of  numbers,  but  avowedly  not  as  an  introduction  to 
fundamental  processes  in  manual  industries.  I  remember  a 
time  when  college  heads  turned  up  their  noses  at  "bread-and- 
butter  education."  If  the  blindness  of  some  efforts  at  the  "  prac- 
tical" partly  justified  this  scorn,  it  in  turn  was  blind  in  that  it 
saw  not  the  social-ethical  significance  of  earning  one's  living 
by  daily  toil  in  one's  trade  or  profession. 

To-day  we  think  of  education  as  a  way  of  getting  the  human 
energy  of  each  new  generation  effectively  applied  to  the  main- 
tenance and  the  increase  of  human  welfare  of  whatever  sort. 
Keeping  children  well,  and  teaching  them  how  to  keep  them- 
selves and  their  community  well;  showing  them  how  to  manage 
a  home,  with  its  need  for  many  sorts  of  skill;  introducing  them 
to  the  civic,  industrial,  and  philanthropic  institutions  of  their 
community;  acquainting  them  with  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment and  with  the  duties  of  citizens;  opening  the  way  to  skill 
in  an  occupation,  and  revealing  the  riches  of  play  as  well  as  of 
literature  and  the  fine  arts — all  this,  which  the  schools  of 
yesterday  left  largely  to  chance,  is  being  incorporated  into  an 
education  that  deserves  to  be  called  "  new." 

The  reason  for  mentioning  these  things  in  a  discussion  of 
religious  education  will  appear  fully  in  later  chapters.  Al- 
ready, however,  it  must  be  evident  that  the  relations  of  the 
church  to  the  child  as  well  as  to  the  adult  are  going  to  have 
their  setting  in  a  new  world.  Religious  education  is  bound  to 
be  judged  from  fresh  standpoints.  "Imparting"  certain  "sub- 
jects of  instruction"  is  becoming  thin  and  threadbare  as  a 
conception  of  teaching.  "Inciting"  to  "virtue"  in  general  will 
seem  flat  to  children  who  are  accustomed  in  their  daily  school- 
ing to  the  enrichment  of  concrete  social  experience  and  to  par- 
ticipation in  important  specific  social  enterprises.  Moreover, 
when  the  schools  become  an  agency  for  applying  human  en- 
ergy, instead  of  providing  a  merely  general  or  unapplied  cul- 
ture, they  move  in  the  realm  of  life  purposes  in  which  religion 
has  a  vital  interest.    In  particular,  education  that  aims  to  pro- 


18  THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

duce  devotion  to  the  social  weal  touches  at  its  very  heart  the 
religion  that  has  set  out  to  change  society  into  a  brotherhood. 

Education  aims  also  at  the  progressive  reconstruction  of 
society.  Adjustment  of  a  child  to  society  just  as  it  is  does  not 
satisfy  the  educational  conscience,  or  even  the  conscience  of 
society  in  general.  Our  social  conservatives  themselves  would 
condemn  an  educational  system  that  sought  to  preserve  our 
social  organization  unchanged.  No;  education  selects  some 
parts  for  preservation,  while  it  condemns  other  parts,  and 
toward  still  others  is  silent  lest  children  should  find  out  how 
bad  we  are.  What  a  confession  society  makes  in  every  school 
that  it  supports  !  It  says,  in  substance :  "  Here  are  a  few  things 
of  permanent  worth  that  we  have  already  achieved;  here,  in 
addition,  are  our  many  unfulfilled  aspirations,  our  unsolved 
problems.  Try  to  be  wiser  and  better  than  we  have  been." 
Thus,  education  is  not  only  society's  supreme  act  of  self- 
preservation;  it  is  also  society's  most  sincere  judgment  upon 
its  own  defects,  and  its  supreme  effort  at  self-improvement. 

These  statements  do  indeed  outrun  most  of  our  educational 
practice.  Our  dealings  with  the  young,  especially  our  insti- 
tutional dealings,  have  no  immunity  from  the  inertia  of  tradition 
or  from  the  anaesthesia  of  self-interest;  and  our  thinking,  as 
was  indicated  at  the  beginning  of  Chapter  I,  grows  within 
practice,  not  in  a  different  world.  Actual  education  is  a  mix- 
ture of  points  of  view.  Nevertheless,  the  idealization  of  life, 
which  implicitly  if  not  explicitly  condemns  our  actual  life,  is  of 
the  essence  of  educational  practice.  At  the  present  moment, 
far  more  than  yesterday,  this  idealizing  takes  on  the  social  hue 
of  almost  all  intense  ethical  reflection  in  our  day.  If,  then,  I 
have  myself  idealized  the  social  aim  of  education,  I  have  merely 
used  with  respect  to  education  its  own  method  of  viewing  life. 

The  basal  process  in  education  is  social  interaction.  To 
bring  society  and  the  individual  child  together  is  the  aim. 
This  means  that  what  we  have  to  teach  the  child  is  humane  and 
jiist  living  in  the  various  relationships,  and  also  active,  well 
directed  labor  that  contributes  to  the  common  life  of  the  pres- 
ent and  likewise  to  the  improvement  of  it.     It  might  seem 


THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  19 

superfluous,  but  the  history  of  schools  proves  that  it  is  not,  to 
point  out  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  social  experience  is  the  only 
thing  that  can  thus  socialize  any  one.  The  first  concern  of 
education  is  not  a  text-book  or  anything  that  printer's  ink  can 
convey,  but  the  persons  with  whom  the  pupil  is  in  contact,  and 
the  sort  of  social  interactions  in  which  he  has  a  part.  On  the 
face  of  the  matter,  how  could  any  one  become  adjusted  to  society 
in  the  absence  of  society,  or  become  socially  efficient  without 
social  practice? 

Some  applications  of  this  principle  appear  as  soon  as  we 
begin  to  reflect  upon  it,  but  others  are  less  obvious  and  more  at 
variance  with  tradition.  In  respect  to  the  more  obvious  per- 
sonal relations  between  pupil  and  teacher,  and  between  pupil 
and  pupil,  the  principle  is  already  in  operation  in  progressive 
schools.     Thus: 

(1)  The  conduct  and  the  personality  of  the  teacher  are  generally 
recognized  as  of  prime  importance.  It  must  be  admitted,  never- 
theless, that  present  methods  for  training  teachers  do  not 
luminously  suggest  any  theory  as  to  how  the  desired  personal 
qualities  can  be  developed.  Moreover,  neither  the  economic 
status  of  teachers,  nor  methods  of  appointment  and  dismissal, 
nor  provisions  for  growth  and  for  social  practice  after  entering 
the  service,  can  be  quite  reconciled,  as  they  stand  to-day, 
with  the  universal  emphasis  upon  personality. 

(2)  In  the  organization  and  management  of  a  school,  and  of 
each  schoolroom,  every  enlightened  teacher  sees  an  opportunity 
to  train  children  in  co-operation  and  self-government.  The  term 
"self-government"  should  not  be  restricted  to  experiments  in 
which  pupils  have  been  organized  in  imitation  of  the  State, 
with  its  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  officers.  Self- 
government  is  more  than  social  mechanism  of  any  pattern. 
It  is  first  of  all  socialization  of  the  teacher's  attitude  toward 
pupils,  that  is,  recognition  of  the  present  value  of  the  pupil's 
personality.  From  this  recognition  will  flow  encouragement  to 
free  action,  to  free  reflection,  and  to  specific  methods  for  the 
organization  of  freedom,  with  its  inevitable  social  pleasures  and 
pains.     It  is   not   the   elaborateness   of   these   methods   that 


20  THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

counts,  nor  yet  the  absence  of  influence  from  the  teacher. 
There  can  be,  and  in  some  experiments  in  pupil-government 
there  appears  to  have  been,  an  artificial  sociality — artificial  be- 
cause created  merely  ad  hoc  and  isolated  from  the  larger  society. 
What  is  needed  is  the  development  of  freedom,  initiative,  and 
co-operation  within  the  existing  relations  not  only  between  pupil 
and  pupil,  but  also  between  pupils  on  the  one  hand  and  their 
teachers,  the  local  community,  and  the  State,  on  the  other. 
Self-government  in  this  sense  is  the  sure  touchstone  of  school 
discipline. 

(3)  In  the  modern  school,  the  play  of  pupils,  which  is  made 
up  almost  altogether  of  social  interactions,  comes  under  supervision. 
The  least  reason  for  supervision  is  the  prevention  of  abuses; 
the  primary  function  is  the  promotion  of  social  and  socializing 
play.  Hence,  the  supervisor  of  the  playground  teaches  the 
children  games  adapted  to  their  respective  social  capacities, 
and  assists  in  the  management  of  contests,  all  with  a  view  to 
the  discipline  of  social  joys  through  the  enrichment  of  them. 

(4)  Studying  and  reciting  also  are  a  field  for  social  experience. 
Instead  of  trying  to  isolate  each  pupil  with  his  book,  and  then 
instead  of  stimulating  each  one  in  the  recitation  to  selfish 
emulation,  or  to  purely  self-regarding  avoidance  of  discomfort, 
the  teacher  treats  the  subject-matter  as  a  social  possession,  and 
as  a  sphere  for  a  co-operative  enterprise  in  learning,  so  that 
each  pupil  "  contributes  to  the  recitation." 

(5)  The  school  of  to-day  introduces  the  pupil  to  community  life, 
and  gives  him  real  functions  in  it.  Around  elections,  holidays, 
civic  anniversaries  and  festivals,  much  instruction  in  the  ideals 
and  the  ways  of  society  is  made  to  centre.  Historical  incidents 
are  dramatized,  and  community  pageants  are  produced.  The 
pupils  are  made  acquainted  at  first  hand  with  the  machinery  of 
the  local  government.  They  meet  the  policeman  face  to  face, 
and  learn  from  his  lips  how  they  can  co-operate  with  him  in 
the  maintenance  of  laws  and  ordinances.  Children  are  organ- 
ized to  keep  streets  and  alleys  clean,  and  to  combat  disease. 
A  few  hours  before  these  words  were  written,  there  passed  under 
my  window  a  squad  of  children  ("squad"  is  the  name  that  they 


THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  21 

used  for  the  group)  all  equipped  with  paraphernaha  for  removing 
cocoons  of  the  tussock  moth  from  the  shade-trees  of  a  city.  It 
is  significant  of  the  educational  organization  of  this  campaign 
that  the  squad  was  under  the  command  of  an  elder  pupil. 

(6)  It  now  becomes  evident  that  if  the  basal  process  in  educa- 
tion is  social  interaction,  the  ancient  isolation  of  school  experience 
from  other  experience  must  he  overcome  all  along  the  line.  This, 
I  take  it,  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  a  new  type  of  boarding- 
school  that  has  appeared  in  the  German  and  Swiss  Landerzieh- 
ungsheim,  and  in  the  Bedales  School  in  England.  Children, 
both  boys  and  gu'ls,  ranging  in  age  from  the  primary  to  the 
mid-high-school  grades,  are  placed  in  a  country  home  under 
conditions  that  reproduce  as  far  as  may  be  the  life  of  a  family 
that  supports  itself  upon  the  land.  Here,  in  connection  with  the 
traditional  "studies,"  the  pupils  sow  and  reap,  manage  domestic 
animals,  construct  and  repair  buildings,  and  make  apparatus 
for  their  games  and  plays,  all  in  the  continuous  society  of  their 
teachers.  These  groups  are  necessarily  small,  but  the  same 
principle  appears  in  the  large  public  schools  of  Gary,  where 
pupils  repair  the  furniture,  keep  the  accounts,  and  even  pay  the 
teachers. 

The  same  principle  is  determinative  of  the  subject-matter, 
the  order,  and  the  use  of  the  curriculum.  The  procedures 
that  have  just  been  described  have  general  approval  because 
they  provide  for  social  training  through  social  experience. 
But  they  are  almost  altogether  outside  the  pupil's  experience 
of  the  contents  of  the  curriculum'  as  something  to  be  learned. 
Can  the  curriculum,  too,  be  brought  under  the  head  of  social 
experience,  or  must  it,  in  the  nature  of  things,  remain,  as  it  is 
in  most  schools,  a  thing  that  contrasts  with  practice,  a  prelimi- 
nary to  social  experience  rather  than  a  part  of  it  ?  The  answer 
has  been  given  by  Professor  Dewey.  Organized  and  stated  in 
my  own  way,  it  is  this: 

(1)  The  claim  of  any  sort  of  knowledge  or  of  skill  to  a  place 
in  the  curriculum  mu^t  meet  the  test  of  social  fruitfulness.  It  must 
be  something  that  enriches  the  common  life.  The  content  of 
instruction  is  to  be  drawn  primarily  from  the  area  of  social 


22  THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

experience  in  the  strict  sense,  that  is,  experience  that  men 
have  of  one  another,  and  specifically  from  experiences  that 
society  has  an  interest  in  reproducing  and  developing.  Sub- 
ject-matter that  is  not  thus  directly  social,  as  parts  of  mathe- 
matics and  of  the  physical  sciences,  is  to  be  treated  as  social 
in  the  sense  of  being  a  common  interest  of  society. 

(2)  The  '^knowledges''  and  ''skills"  thus  selected  are  to  be 
taught  in  an  order  that  is  determined  by  the  pupil's  own  growing 
social  needs  and  functions.  In  his  relations  within  the  family, 
the  play  group,  the  school,  the  city,  a  child  has  from  the  be- 
ginning problems  of  social  adjustment,  social  efficiency,  and 
social  reconstruction  of  his  own.  Grading  the  subject-matter 
of  instruction  consists  primarily  in  introducing  him,  in  each  of 
these  social  situations,  to  the  material  that  he  can  use  and 
enjoy.  This  genetic-social  order  cuts  across  and  to  some 
extent  supplants  the  old  logical  classification  or  linear  arrange- 
ment of  studies  (reading,  arithmetic,  history,  etc.)-  What  has 
to  be  mastered  at  each  turn  is  a  function  or  enterprise — a  term 
that  applies  equally  to  learning  a  trade,  learning  the  duties  of 
a  voter,  and  mastering  the  processes  involved  in  playing  at 
storekeeping  or  with  dolls.  In  the  strict  sense,  the  curriculum 
is  a  succession  of  these  enterprises,  not  a  succession  of  "  subjects 
of  instruction."  These  subjects  will  now  come  along  in  order 
and  amount  as  they  are  needed,  and  they  will  draw  their  vitality 
as  instruments  of  education  from  the  fact  that  need  for  them 
has  arisen. 

(3)  Each  piece  of  subject-matter  is  to  be  approached  through  a 
motive  that  is,  in  this  very  act,  in  process  of  social  growth.  The 
ideal  is  that  no  pupil  should  ever  have  a  purely  individualistic 
attitude  toward  any  item  or  toward  the  labor  that  is  required 
to  master  it.  To  develop  self-centred  individuality  first,  as 
traditional  methods  tend  to  do,  with  the  intention  of  subse- 
quently transferring  its  strength  to  social  enterprises,  is  a  double 
blunder.  On  the  one  hand,  it  tends  to  defeat  its  ultimate  social 
purpose  by  forming  individualistic  habits  that  are  hard  to  break; 
on  the  other  hand,  it  makes  no  provision,  or  inadequate  provi- 
sion, for  the  growth  of  social  purpose,  but  assumes  that  it  can 


THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT  23 

spring  into  being  fully  formed.  The  social  approach  to  subject- 
matter  that  is  only  indirectly  social  may  be  conveniently  illus- 
trated by  one  of  the  present  approved  methods  of  teaching 
certain  numerical  processes.  Instead  of  merely  drilling  the 
pupil  upon  printed  tables  and  imaginary  problems,  the  play 
of  storekeeping  is  introduced,  with  its  demand  for  measuring 
and  weighing,  making  change,  and  keeping  accounts. 

(4)  All  this  means  that  the  old  separation  between  living  and 
preparing  to  live  is  to  be  done  away  with  even  in  studies.  The 
separation  is  to  disappear  from  the  mind  of  both  the  pupil 
and  the  society  that  educates  him.  Just  as  play,  which  is  so 
large  a  part  of  real  life  from  the  pupil's  point  of  view,  is  being 
incorporated  also  into  the  adult's  interests,  so,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  occupations  of  adults,  and  their  civic  ideals  and  enter- 
prises, instead  of  being  withheld  from  the  pupil  until  he  shall 
in  some  mysterious  way  pass  from  education  into  life,  now  be- 
come material  of  education,  a  sphere  in  which  the  child  and  his 
seniors  live  an  unbroken  community  life.  In  short,  in  their 
entire  life  in  the  public  schools,  pupils  are  to  be  thought  of  as 
simply  fulfilling  their  functions  as  members  of  the  State. 

An  important  corollary,  or  more  properly  part,  of  this  move- 
ment to  identify  education  with  life,  is  the  transformation  that 
is  taking  place  in  our  notions  of  what  constitutes  a  school. 
We  are  beginning  to  see  that  a  school  is  not  a  thing  to  be  grad- 
uated from  and  left  behind.  Within  a  mile  or  two  of  the  desk 
at  which  I  wi-ite  these  words  there  are  school  buildings  and 
grounds  at  which  the  people  provide  for  themselves  the  follow- 
ing facilities  for  their  common  life:  Evening  classes  in  wood- 
working and  cookery;  classes  in  citizenship  for  immigrants, 
and  a  reception  to  new  citizens  upon  their  naturalization;  free 
baths  for  young  and  old;  match  games  of  baseball  for  the  young 
men;  dancing-classes  and  dancing-parties  under  wholesome 
supervision;  a  forum  for  political  discussion;  art  exhibitions; 
entertainments  of  various  kinds,  as  on  the  evening  of  election 
day,  when  the  returns  are  received  by  a  special  wire. 

A  brief  formulation  of  this  theory  of  school  organization, 
methods,  and  curriculum  is  as  follows:    Social  character  and 


24  THE  SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 

efficiency  are  to  be  achieved  through  social  experience;  social 
experience  is  to  be  had  primarily  through  the  performance  of 
social  functions,  but  it  may  be  extended  through  imagination 
in  the  use  of  well-selected  and  well-graded  subject-matter 
that  represents  the  social  experience  of  the  race;  school  experi- 
ence is  most  effective  educationally  when  the  pupil  experiences 
the  least  break  between  it  and  the  life  of  the  larger  society. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   PHILOSOPHICAL   SETTING   OF   THE   NEW 
SOCIAL   IDEALS  IN  EDUCATION 

The  general  relation  of  education  to   philosophy.    The 

tendencies  to  which  the  last  chapter  called  attention  may  be 
summed  up  as  the  social  idea  in  education.  Because  of  its 
depth  or  comprehensiveness,  this  idea  may  be  called  philosophi- 
cal, and  as  far  as  it  controls  educational  practice  we  may  say 
that  education  is  applied  social  philosophy.  We  do  not  stum- 
ble any  longer  at  the  notion  that  life  and  philosophy  may  be 
one.  To  the  old  saying  that  "Philosophy  bakes  no  bread," 
the  reply  is.  What  but  philosophy  can  bake  bread?  Wheat 
does  not  make  itself  into  loaves;  fire  and  oven  are  breadless 
without  the  baker,  and  he  is  a  baker  because  of  the  ideas  that 
guide  his  hands.  These  ideas,  because  they  concern  the  ends 
and  means  of  living,  represent,  as  far  as  they  go,  a  philosophical 
interest.  To  philosophize  is  to  open  one's  eyes  and  gaze  all 
around  the  horizon  so  as  to  see  whence  and  whither  one's  steps 
are  tending.  Neither  by  its  subject-matter,  nor  by  its  methods 
of  analysis,  nor  by  any  aloofness  of  aim  is  philosophical  thinking 
set  off  from  any  other.  It  is  distinguished  as  philosophical  by 
its  comprehensiveness,  thoroughness,  and  persistence. 

A  glance  at  the  setting  of  the  movement  for  socializing  educa- 
tion will  show  that  we  are  dealing  with  no  split-off  part  of 
thought  or  of  social  life,  but  with  the  whole  moving  social  mass, 
and  with  its  growing  awareness  of  the  meaning  of  its  own  move- 
ment. 

The  educational  ideals  that  this  generation  inherited. 
If  the  question  "What  is  the  ideal  of  modern  education?" 
had  been  asked  thirty  years  ago,  the  most  probable  answer 
would  have  been  somewhat  as  follows :   "  The  mark  of  moder- 

25 


26  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING 

nity  is  recognition  of  education  as  falling  within  mental  growth, 
which  proceeds  from  within  outward  by  unfolding,  not  by  accre- 
tion. This  implies  that  the  freedom  of  the  child  is  respected, 
and  that  the  great  function  of  teaching  is  to  assist  him  to  ade- 
quate free  self-expression.'*  If  one  had  asked  to  see  a  dis- 
tinctly modern  school,  a  kindergarten  would  have  been  pointed 
out,  and  the  progressiveness  of  other  schools  would  have  been 
measured  chiefly  by  their  responsiveness  to  the  great  message 
of  the  movement  that  bore  the  name  of  Froebel. 

In  the  ideal  of  freely  unfolding  individuality  two  closely 
related  influences  are  discernible,  that  of  philosophical  idealism 
and  that  of  the  movement  for  popular  government.  On  the 
philosophical  side  the  greatest  single  impulse  came  from 
Kant.  In  his  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft  (1781)  he  maintained 
that  mind  does  not  come  upon  its  world  as  something  ready 
made,  but  builds  it  forth  out  of  mere  raw  materials  of  the  senses. 
We  have  a  coherent  world  at  all,  it  was  said,  only  because  we 
impose  upon  these  materials  certain  forms  and  categories  that 
are  of  the  nature  of  our  mind.  Otherwise  stated,  the  structure 
of  our  mind  is  the  organizing  principle  of  any  world  that  we 
could  possibly  know.  In  a  sense,  then,  the  meaning  of  all 
experience  is  preformed  in  us.  Kant's  great  idealist  successors, 
Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  labored  to  show,  each  in  his  own 
way,  what  this  meaning  is  and  how  we  become  aware  of  it. 

The  educational  corollary  of  this  idealistic  movement  is 
that  we  should  not  impose  ready-made  ideas  or  rules  upon 
the  child  mind,  but  rather  provide  conditions  favorable  for 
spontaneous  mental  growth  whereby  what  the  child  already 
implicitly  is  will  become  explicit  both  as  world-outlook  and  as 
ethical  self-guidance.  Thus  it  was,  in  part,  that  teacher-wis- 
dom took  on  forms  like  these:  Adjust  your  procedure  to  the 
child  mind,  not  the  child  mind  to  some  preconceived  method 
(hence  the  necessity  of  child  study  and  of  child  psychology); 
to  teach  is  not  to  impart  ideas,  but  to  develop  the  ideas  that 
the  pupil  already  has;  no  impression  without  expression; 
we  are  not  to  mould  the  child,  but  to  provide  material  for  him 
to  mould;  we  learn  by  doing;  utilize,  do  not  repress,  the  child's 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING  27 

curiosity,  his  imagination,  and  his  impulses  to  play  and  to  con- 
struction; the  end  of  the  whole  is  not  information  or  skill,  but 
a  free  personality  at  home  in  its  world ;  the  ideal  teacher  is  not 
a  taskmaster,  much  less  a  mechanic,  but  a  friend,  a  revealer,  a 
protecting  divinity. 

We  cannot  stop  to  inquire  what  specific  part  Pestalozzi, 
Froebel,  and  Herbart  had  respectively  in  making  such  educa- 
tional ideas  convincing,  or  in  devising  methods  for  applying 
them.  Nor  is  there  space  to  show  how  far  these  ideas  ever 
prevailed  in  the  schools.  But  the  essentially  religious  pre- 
suppositions that  are  here  involved  should  be  noted.  Mind  has 
the  primacy  in  the  universe;  experience  has  meaning  that  we 
can  discover,  and  even  be  a  part  of;  duty  is  the  voice  of  God. 
Hence,  if  teaching  becomes  a  prophetic  office,  none  the  less  the 
child  himself  becomes  a  "prophet  of  the  soul.'*  To  the  rever- 
ence for  their  elders  that  had  been  demanded  of  children,  the 
nineteenth  century  added  reverence  of  adults  for  childhood 
itself.  Every  birth  was  a  fresh  incarnation  of  the  ultimate 
meaning  that  pervades  things.  To  invade  the  personality  of  a 
child  was  more  heinous  than  to  rob  a  householder  of  his  goods. 

The  second  great  factor  in  this  educational  ideal  is  the 
aspiration  for  political  freedom  that  came  to  partial  expres- 
sion in  the  French  Revolution  and  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
American  experiment  in  popular  government.  Consider  the 
extraordinary  value  attributed  to  the  individual  by  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence:  Freedom  is  the  natural  right,  the  in- 
alienable inheritance  of  every  man;  all  just  government  de- 
rives its  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  These 
conceptions  belong  in  the  same  thought-sphere  as  idealism,  and 
they  reinforce  its  educational  corollaries.  Into  the  phases  of 
this  reinforcement,  from  Rousseau's  demand  for  education  that 
shall  protect  the  child  from  social  conventions  to  Horace  Mann's 
labor  in  behalf  of  schools  for  all  the  people  controlled  by  all 
the  people,  we  are  not  permitted,  in  this  discussion,  to  enter. 
What  characterizes  the  whole  is  insistence  upon  opportunity 
for  the  individual,  and  emancipation  for  him.  As  far  as  the 
schools   were  interested  in  good  citizenship,   it  meant,   pre- 


28  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING 

domlnantly,  individual  competency,  particularly  intellectual 
competency,  for  the  use  of  the  ballot. 

Why  religious  education  has  been  slow  to  assimilate 
the  educational  doctrines  of  the  nineteenth  century.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century  we  behold  in  religious 
circles  an  awakening  of  educational  consciousness  that  takes 
the  form,  to  a  large  extent,  of  self-criticism  for  the  formalism 
of  religious  teaching,  and  for  its  failure  to  appreciate  growth 
and  free  self-expression.  Here  was  educational  twilight  after 
a  whole  century  of  essentially  religious  ideals  in  educational 
thinking.  The  explanation  lies  partly  in  the  slowness  of  schools 
and  colleges  generally  to  respond  to  the  newer  ideals.  The 
practical  problems  with  which  the  present  generation  of  educa- 
tionists had  to  start  were  still  those  of  a  curriculum  imposed 
upon  growing  rninds  rather  than  expressive  of  their  growth, 
and  of  formalism  in  method  rather  than  free  self-expression. 
But  the  main  reason  for  the  backwardness  of  religious  educa- 
tion lies  elsewhere,  namely,  in  the  control  of  ecclesiastical  ma- 
chinery by  belief  that  the  meaning  of  life  was  fully  and  authori- 
tatively revealed  in  ancient  times,  so  that  the  central  function 
of  religious  teaching  is  to  pass  on  a  completed,  unchanging  de- 
posit of  faith.  It  is  true  that  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  some  attention  was  given  to  methods  in  the 
Sunday  school.  Efforts  to  train  teachers  were  by  no  means 
altogether  lacking.  It  is  true,  also,  that  in  large  ecclesiastical 
areas  the  conscious  aim  of  the  Sunday  schools  was  religious 
life,  not  merely  orthodox  belief.  Yet  religious  living  was 
prescribed,  imposed,  added  to  the  child;  under  the  ruling  as- 
sumptions, spiritual  life  could  not  be  treated  as  a  free  forth- 
living  on  his  part.  In  Protestantism,  then,  as  well  as  in 
Catholicism,  our  century  inherited  a  hiatus  between  appre- 
ciation of  free  individuality  and  the  content  and  the  methods  of 
religious  teaching. 

How  the  ideals  of  the  scientific  movement  modify  the 
notion  of  education.  Regulated  observation  and  experiment; 
the  resultant  discovery  of  laws;  new  control  of  natural  forces 
as  an  end  result — these  are  the  marks  of  the  scientific  movement. 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING  29 

Its  progress  during  the  nineteenth  century  constitutes  perhaps 
the  most  momentous,  as  it  certainly  does  the  most  rapid,  change 
that  has  ever  taken  place  in  the  method  and  the  content  of 
thought.  The  already  accomplished  increase  in  man's  control 
of  nature  is  astonishing;  the  possibilities  that  it  suggests  are 
fascinating.  But  the  scientific  movement  has  bearings  upon 
the  relations  of  man  to  man  that  are  solemnizing,  in  some 
cases  terrifying,  as  when  we  contemplate  the  present  industrial 
conflict  and  the  clash  of  nations. 

The  most  obvious  educational  effects  of  the  movement  are 
the  introduction  of  various  sciences  into  the  curriculum,  and 
increase  in  the  number  and  the  thoroughness  of  technical  courses 
and  of  technical  schools  that  have  as  their  aim  fitness  for  an 
occupation.  A  cultivated  individual,  valued  for  what  he  is 
in  and  of  himself,  is  less  and  less  the  standard  of  educational 
success.  The  purpose  is  shifting  toward  increase  of  human 
efficiency. 

The  notion  of  efficiency  or  scientific  control  is  modifying  our 
approach  to  educational  processes  as  well  as  our  ideals  of  cul- 
ture. Psychology,  having  become  an  experimental  science,  is 
bringing  back  into  educational  theory  the  concept  of  definite 
control  of  pupil  by  teacher — not  control  in  the  old  school- 
masterish  sense  of  command  and  compulsion,  yet  something 
different  from  the  "protecting  divinity"  attitude,  which  as- 
sumes that  the  proper  control  for  the  child  is  already  implicitly 
within  him,  and  in  need  of  nothing  but  adequate  encouragement 
to  self-expression.  What  psychology  offers  to-day  is  such  in- 
sight into  details  of  the  teaching  process  as  teachers  never 
before  possessed  or  dreamed  of  as  possible.  Just  as  agriculture 
is  moving  from  control  by  the  traditional  wisdom  of  generations 
of  farmers  to  "scientific  farming,"  with  its  analysis  of  soils, 
its  tests  of  seeds,  and  its  plant  pathology,  so  the  generalized, 
largely  incalculable,  and  partly  intractable  "human  nature" 
of  school  traditions  is  being  replaced  by  measured  relations  of 
antecedence  and  sequence. 

We  are  beginning  to  control  certain  factors  of  inheritance 
also.     The  upspringing  of  eugenics  brings  within  sight  a  time 


30  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING 

when  congenitally  defective  individuals,  who  produce  the 
least  educable  of  children,  will  be  estopped  from  reproduction, 
and  the  better-endowed  strains  will  deliberately  control  the 
choice  of  mates,  the  number  of  offspring,  the  conditions  of  birth, 
and  the  care  of  children,  all  in  the  interest  of  an  improved  human 
stock.  Thus  education  and  eugenics,  working  together,  will 
place  in  somebody's  hands  unprecedented  power  over  our 
social  destinies.  A  humanly  guided  development  of  racial 
quality,  and  a  humanly  guided  application  of  human  energy 
in  the  mass — foresight  of  these  things  must  be  included  in  any 
comprehensive  philosophy  of  education.^ 

Scientific  education  requires  a  political  philosophy.  Scien- 
tific control  of  nature,  which  is  now  an  end  in  education,  is 
not  separable  from  scientific  control  of  men  and  of  society. 
It  is  true  that  when  we  arrange  the  parts  of  the  universe  in  the 
order  of  their  significance  or  value,  as  when  we  rank  them 
under  the  category  of  means  and  end,  we  contrast  man  with 
nature.  But  when  we  think  of  the  world  as  an  orderly  proc- 
ess, as  when  we  ask  under  what  conditions  this  or  that  change 
occurs,  we  include  man  within  nature  and  its  laws  just  as  we 
include  the  winds  and  the  clouds.  Consequently,  the  sciences 
of  man,  revealing  the  specific  conditions  of  specific  human  acts, 
become  a  means  for  controlling  men,  and  scientific  education 
puts  this  control  into  the  hands  of  specific  members  of  society. 
Mental  hygiene  and  therapeutics,  the  psychology  of  advertis- 
ing and  of  salesmanship,  analysis  of  vocational  aptitudes,  the 
movement  for  "scientific  management,"  and  various  parts  of 
sociology — all  are  recent  advances  in  this  direction. 

We  are  confronted,  then,  even  as  educationists,  with  the 
question:  In  what  part  of  society  is  control  to  be  lodged?  And 
to  what  ends  shall  control  be  guided?  By  educational  proce- 
dures we  can  make  an  aristocratic  or  a  democratic  attitude 

1  Control  that  approximates  this  already  exists  in  Germany.  Reproduction  is 
consciously  guided,  as  respects  the  size  of  families,  by  a  national  ideal,  and  the 
same  ideal  permeates  education  from  top  to  bottom.  Back  of  the  amazing  ef- 
ficiency that  the  German  nation  has  displayed  in  the  present  war  is  something 
more  than  mihtary  training  and  scientific  organization  of  material  resources; 
there  is  also  a  mobilization  of  feeling  and  thought  that  was  made  possible  by 
previous  regimentation  of  the  mind  by  educational  processes. 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING  31 

toward  one's  fellows  habitual.  We  can  produce  submissive- 
ness  or  self-assertion.  We  can  fix  the  assumptions  of  our 
pupils'  social  thinking.  The  paramount  question,  therefore, 
is  this:  What  social  likes  and  dislikes — that  is,  habits  of  feel- 
ing with  respect  to  the  regulation  of  human  life  by  human 
beings — shall  we  cultivate  ?  For  what  kinds  of  authority  shall 
we  secure  respect?  We  should  flatter  our  day  and  generation 
unduly  if  we  assumed  that  educational  philosophy  has  kept  pace 
with  the  multiplying  needs  for  reconstruction  of  our  social 
controls.  Yet,  all  in  all,  the  political  philosophy  that  has  the 
greatest  influence  with  American  educationists  looks  forward 
to  democratic  rather  than  aristocratic  control  of  the  resources 
of  both  nature  and  man.  That  is,  the  trend  is  toward  industrial 
democracy. 

•  The  educational  significance  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution. 
The  evolutionary  view  of  nature,  man  included,  has  not  only 
provided  fresh  matter  of  instruction,  it  has  also  placed  the  whole 
educational  enterprise  in  a  new  perspective. 

(1)  ^  genetic  view  of  the  human  mind  has  been  achieved. 
When  Kant  lectured  upon  the  categories  of  the  understanding, 
or  upon  the  pure  practical  reason,  he  referred  to  mind  as  he 
thought  he  found  it  in  himself,  an  adult  human  being.  Such 
was  to  him  "the"  human  mind.  He  felt  no  necessity  for 
asking  how  it  had  acquired  the  traits  that  he  attributed  to 
it.  The  moral  imperative — to  take  the  point  in  his  thinking 
that  is  of  greatest  social  importance — could  be  understood,  he 
thought,  by  mere  introspection,  without  reference  to  the  moral 
growth  of  the  child,  or  to  the  moral  development  of  the  race. 
But  present  thought  is  convinced  that  exactly  the  contrary  is 
the  truth.  We  cannot  understand  the  fact  of  a  moral  imperative 
without  examining  the  genesis  and  growth  of  the  sense  of  duty. 
Mental  faculties,  or  better,  processes,  of  whatever  kind  have  a 
history  that  connects  the  adult  mind  with  the  child,  and  the 
human  mind  with  animal  minds  of  all  grades.  Therefore  mental 
beginnings  and  growth  processes  in  both  the  human  and  the 
subhuman  realm  become  significant  determiners  of  economical 
educative  processes. 


32  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING 

(2)  The  instincts  acquire  a  fundamental  'place  in  educational 
psychology.  The  older  treatments  of  the  learning  or  the  teach- 
ing process  were  occupied  with  perception,  ideation,  and  reason- 
ing; to-day  we  include  as  fundamental  a  mass  of  unlearned 
tendencies  to  action,  and  also  the  constant  influence  of  plea- 
sures and  pains.  A  teacher  must  now  be  ready  to  answer  the 
following  question  concerning  each  part  of  his  dealing  with 
children:  Upon  what  habits  already  formed,  and  upon  what 
original  or  instinctive  tendencies  do  you  rely  for  securing  the 
reaction  that  you  desire  the  pupil  to  make?  This  question 
applies  in  the  same  sense  to  the  learning  of  arithmetic  and  the 
learning  of  courtesy  and  upright  conduct. 

(3)  The  doctrine  of  evolution,  which  contemplates  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  relations  to  a  species,  leads  us  to  think  of  education 
in  terms  of  racial  processes  and  of  racial  betterment.  Individual- 
istic notions  tend  to  be  crowded  out  of  our  minds  even  by  our 
attempts  to  follow  nature.  For  the  inclusion  of  education 
within  the  notion  of  natural  history  looks  both  forward  and  back- 
ward— backward  from  the  human  toward  the  brute,  forward 
from  the  brute  toward  the  human,  and  from  the  human  that 
is  toward  that  which  may  be.  The  idea  of  progress,  it  is  true, 
has  no  place  in  the  definition  of  evolution  as  a  mode  of  change. 
Yet  the  actual  history  of  life  cannot  be  contemplated  in  its 
entirety  without  seeing  that  progress  does  occur  under  natural 
law.  Each  stage  of  this  history  has  for  us  a  forelook  that  gives 
it  poetic  coloring.     Says  Emerson: 

"And  the  poor  worm  shall  plot  and  plan 
What  it  will  do  when  it  is  man." 

Thus  in  its  own  way  evolutionism  reinforces  idealism.  If 
from  the  natural-history  point  of  view  children  belong  to  na- 
ture, from  the  same  point  of  view  nature  belongs  to  them.  In 
their  education  nature  takes  possession  of  herself  and  reaches 
consciously  toward  goals  that  are  only  dimly  foreshadowed  in 
prehuman  species.  Whether  or  not  acquired  characters  can 
be  inherited,  Davidson  is  right  in  regarding  education  as  con- 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING  33 

scious  evolution.^  For,  in  the  first  place,  eugenic  control 
of  the  stock  through  education  concerning  reproduction  and 
racial  interests  is  already  in  sight,  and  in  the  second  place, 
education  organizes  and  directs  the  actual  use  of  the  instincts, 
which  are  so  large  a  part  of  our  mental  inheritance.^ 

The  influence  of  industrial  conditions  upon  educational 
philosophy.  Machine  manufacture,  the  factory  system,  great 
cities,  steam  and  electric  transportation,  electric  communica- 
tion, the  massing  of  capital,  and  mass  movements  of  laborers — 
these,  joined  with  popular  suffrage,  have  produced  not  only  our 
characteristic  social  strains,  but  also  a  type  of  social  thinking 
that  is  comprehensive  enough  to  be  called  philosophical. 
Those  who  say  that  our  problem  is  to  determine  the  place  of 
the  human  factor  in  industry  do  not  go  deep  enough.  We  are 
really  working  at  the  problem  of  the  place  of  industries  in  human 
life.  Here  the  question  that  underlies  all  others  is  this:  Shall 
there  be  a  permanent  servile  class  ? 

The  outlook  with  respect  to  social  stratification  has  immediate 
and  far-reaching  educational  bearings.  The  so-called  laboring 
classes  have  cherished  the  public  schools  largely  as  a  means  of 
lifting  their  children  above  the  necessity  of  manual  labor,  or 
if  possible  out  of  the  class  of  employees  into  that  of  employers. 
On  the  other  hand,  industrial  training  in  the  schools,  with  its 
correlate  of  vocational  guidance,  constitutes  in  effect  the  actual 
predetermination  of  masses  of  children  to  manual  pursuits  and 
the  rank  of  employee.  Labor  leaders  have  been  apprehensive 
lest  capital  should  secure  control  of  industrial  training,  and 
make  it  not  only  a  means  of  supplying  skilled  labor,  but  also  of 
strengthening  capitalistic  control  of  the  terms  and  conditions 
of  labor. 

That  the  wage-workers  carry  an  undue  proportion  of  the 
social  burdens  has  become  clear.  The  wage  system  itself  is 
competition  in  getting  the  most  out  of  men  for  the  least  return. 
Those  who  receive  the  least  wage  are  the  ones  who  bear  the 
heaviest  burden  of  unemployment,  industrial  accidents  and  dis- 

1  Thomas  Davidson,  History  of  Education  (New  York,  1901),.  -' 
» I  shall  deal  more  at  large  with  this  point  in  Chapter  X./ 


34  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING 

eases,  and  the  support  of  children  and  of  the  aged;  and  this 
condition  coexists  with  unprecedented  fortunes  amassed  by 
applying  the  labor  of  these  very  men  to  the  freely  given  re- 
sources of  the  earth.  This  situation  is  producing  a  demand 
that  the  entire  maintenance  of  the  laborer  and  his  family  in 
health  and  disease  throughout  life  be  included  in  the  cost  of 
production,  so  that  it  shall  be  paid  for  by  those  who  consume 
the  product.  But  the  sense  of  justice,  having  gone  thus  far, 
does  not  stop.  Once  take  the  point  of  view  of  a  life  in  its  whole- 
ness, especially  a  life  in  which  father,  mother,  and  child  count 
as  one,  a  life  therefore  that  entails  itself  upon  the  future  without 
known  limit — once  take  this  point  of  view,  and  you  will  go  on 
to  ask  why  the  human  factor  in  industries  should  not  be  the  con- 
trolling factor;  why  the  conditions  under  which  human  energy 
whether  of  hand  or  of  brain  is  expended  should  not  be  determined 
by  those  most  immediately  concerned ;  whether  all  the  producers 
should  not  determine  the  distribution  of  all  the  product  of  their 
joint  expenditure;  further,  in  view  of  the  inextricable  inter- 
meshing  of  the  industries  with  commerce,  finance,  and  politics, 
whether  the  whole  economic  mechanism  must  not  be  taken  over 
by  organized  society  as  an  instrument  of  the  common  life. 

When  we  commit  ourselves  to  a  genuine  popular  franchise 
and  to  humanitarianism,  we  commit  ourselves  against  social 
stratification.  Education,  under  such  presuppositions,  is  bound 
to  undermine  whatever  makes  for  the  permanence  of  a  servile 
class  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  leisure  class  on  the  other.  How- 
ever long  the  road  that  leads  to  industrial  democracy,  popular 
education  has  entered  upon  it  and  cannot  turn  back. 

Educational  bearings  of  the  pragmatic  movement  in 
philosophy.  I  shall  assume  that  the  reader  has  some  familiar- 
ity with  the  fresh  philosophical  doctrines  called  pragmatism. 
It  is  a  river  into  which  four  streams  that  are  of  immediate  in- 
terest to  us  have  poured  themselves.  First,  psychology,  moving 
away  from  intellectualism  toward  voluntarism,  away  from  mind 
as  contemplation  of  a  world  to  mind  assisting  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  provoked  the  question :  Why,  then,  look  for  the  con- 
stitution of  reality  in  intellectual  structure?    Why  not  look 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING  35 

for  it  in  the  direction  of  will  and  action?  Second,  theology, 
largely  because  of  the  results  of  historical  study,  found  a  shift 
of  position  necessary.  The  shift  was  partly  toward  mysticism, 
but  far  more  toward  an  ethical  grounding  for  faith.  To  this 
the  Ritschlian  movement,  which  gave  the  first  position  to 
value  judgments,  had  already  made  a  large  contribution  be- 
fore pragmatism  as  an  inclusive  philosophy  appeared.  Third, 
the  scientific  movement,  emphasizing  active  experimentation 
as  the  supreme  method  of  discovery,  and  leading  on  to  the 
notion  of  indefinite  extension  of  the  control  of  nature  in  the 
interest  of  human  welfare,  secures  a  completely  generalized 
expression  in  the  pragmatic  doctrine  that  the  very  notion 
of  truth  is  to  be  assimilated  to  that  of  active  experimentation 
and  its  results.  Fourth,  the  fascination  that  an  age  of  machin- 
ery experiences  in  its  unprecedented  enterprises  and  in  its 
immense  eflSciency  crystallizes  into  the  thought  that  life  as  a 
whole  is  enterprise  within  a  universe  that  contains  nothing 
eternally  finished  and  final,  but  rather  invites  us  to  be  part 
creators  of  its  flowing  destiny. 

Metaphysical  idealism  had  bequeathed  to  educational  phi- 
losophy the  notion  of  a  predetermined  human  nature  moving 
toward  an  eternally  predetermined  goal,  which  is  the  same  for 
all  individuals.  Pragmatism  reverses  all  this  as  far  as  possible. 
It  undertakes  to  carry  out  the  notion  of  cosmic  becoming, 
plasticity,  potentiality.  The  glory  of  human  life,  it  teaches, 
lies  not  in  the  faithful  repetition  of  any  prescribed  program, 
but  in  fresh  impulses  that  have  the  vigor  to  test  themselves  in 
action. 

Some  specific  educational  tendencies  of  this  mode  of  thought '^ 
may  be  formulated  as  follows :  (1)  Dissolution  of  the  traditional 
generalized  ideal  of  the  cultivated  man.  Each  man  is  now 
defined  by  his  purposes  and  what  comes  of  them.  (2)  Con- 
sequently a  drastic  criticism  of  traditional  curricula  and 
methods  of  teaching  on  the  ground  that  they  are  removed 
from  the  world's  work,  that  they  lack  definiteness  of  purpose, 
and  that  they  are  unable  to  develop  the  spirit  of  enterprise 
or  to  test  the  results  of  it  when  it  is  present.     (3)  Demand 


^ 


36  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING 

for  definite  standards  and  tests  of  school  efficiency.  Measure- 
ments in  education  are  stimulated — measurements  of  the  in- 
go  at  every  point  in  terms  of  space,  time,  dollars,  and  persons, 
and  of  the  outcome  in  terms  of  health,  amount  and  accuracy 
of  work  done,  rate  of  improvement,  extension  of  interests,  and 
persons  equipped  for  specific  functions  in  society.  This  in- 
sistence that  we  shall  know  how  costly  and  how  efficient  each 
factor  is  tends  to  displace  the  notion  that  faithful  teaching  is 
patient  persistence  in  prescribed  methods.  (4)  The  unifica- 
tion of  the  school  with  the  enterprises  of  the  community, 
among  which  making  one's  living  is  frankly  included.  In  a 
farming  population  the  old  break  between  the  school  and  the 
farm  will  be  done  away  with  by  bringing  agriculture  into  the 
school.  A  shoe-manufacturing  community  will  be  recogniza- 
ble as  such  from  its  schools.  This  principle  has  many  applica- 
tions, some  of  which,  especially  those  that  involve  conflict 
between  social  ideals,  are  far  from  being  easy. 

The  pragmatic  movement  takes  as  reality  that  which 
works,  or  has  positive  results,  satisfactory  or  otherwise.  It 
invites  us  to  measure  the  world  and  men  in  these  terms,  and 
to  steer  our  further  enterprises  accordingly.  But  in  view 
of  the  multiplicity  of  satisfactions,  the  various  levels  of  de- 
sire from  instinct  upward,  and  the  conflicts  between  under- 
takings that  are  equally  natural,  some  principle  of  discrimina- 
tion is  necessary.  It  does  not  appear  that  we  guide  ourselves 
altogether  by  the  satisfactions  that  we  have  found  achievable 
in  the  greatest  amount  and  with  the  greatest  certainty.  Some 
enterprises  that  achieve  just  what  they  go  after,  and  are  there- 
fore successful  from  their  own  point  of  view,  are  nevertheless 
regarded  as  in  reality  dismal  failures.  What  pragmatism 
might  conceivably  do  with  this  "in  reality"  I  shall  not  stop  to 
inquire.  The  query  is  raised  merely  for  the  sake  of  indicating 
the  chief  difficulty  in  the  pragmatic  control  of  education, 
namely,  how  to  avoid  a  shallow  pragmatism  of  immediate  ends. 
Pragmatists  are  in  general  convinced  that  social  enterprises 
and  social  satisfactions  have  validity  that  individualistic 
ones    do    not.     Thus   far   pragmatism   reinforces    the   social 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  SETTING  37 

philosophy  that  we  have  seen  forming  itself  within  the  theory 
of  education.  Moreover,  the  forward  look  of  pragmatism,  its 
expectation  of  the  unprecedented,  its  readiness  to  press  onward 
into  the  unknown,  relate  it  closely  to  religious  faith  and  to 
the  practical  influence  of  idealism  itself. 

These  various  lines  of  thought  converge  toward  social 
idealism  as  a  philosophy  of  life.  The  metaphysical  ideal- 
ism that  underlay  the  educational  aspirations  of  the  last 
century  offered  an  inspiring  view  of  human  nature.  Enfolded 
in  the  personality,  or  coming  to  consciousness  in  human  ex- 
perience, was  infinite  reason,  absolute  moral  law,  the  ultimate 
good.  Men  shared  in  the  very  life  of  God.  From  such  con- 
victions there  could  but  grow  concern  for  common  welfare,  as 
when,  under  the  stimulus  of  Thomas  Hill  Green's  teaching, 
Arnold  Toynbee  started  the  social-settlement  movement. 

What  happens  to  this  reverential  regard  for  man  when  em- 
pirical science  proclaims  that  there  is  continuity  between  him 
and  the  brute ;  when  philosophy  denies  the  existence  of  finished 
and  eternal  principles  in  his  mental  structure;  when  man  as 
he  is,  not  as  he  ought  to  be,  has  the  franchise;  when  teeth  and 
stomach  take  seats  at  council  tables  where  heretofore  intellect 
and  conscience  only  had  conferred  together  in  solemn  dignity; 
and  when  education  takes  into  its  hands  the  grimy  tools  of 
industry?  What  has  already  happened  is  an  unprecedented 
convergence  of  conviction  that  experience  finds  meaning,  and 
aspiration  finds  scope,  in  social  welfare  and  social  progress. 
This  is  not  the  place  for  raising  the  question  whether  this  con- 
viction can  be  reached  from  so  diverse  starting-points  by  rigor- 
ously logical  processes.  For  our  purpose  it  is  enough  to  note 
that  attention,  in  so  many  types  of  reflection,  does  as  a  matter 
of  fact  focus  upon  man  as  of  supreme  significance,  and  upon 
social  good  as  the  one  adequate  sphere  of  man's  endeavor. 
Social  idealism  is  the  philosophy  of  life  that  prevails  among 
reflective  persons,  and  it  constitutes  the  corner-stone  of  pro- 
gressive educational  theory. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL  IN  A  SOCIALIZED 

EDUCATION 

Ambiguity   of    the  terms   "social"   and    "individual." 

Shall  we  assume,  even  in  our  use  of  terms,  that  life  can  be- 
come "individual'*  without  reference  to  society,  or  that  "so- 
ciety" implies  of  itself  nothing  as  to  individuality?  Are  the 
two  merely  antithetical,  or  may  they  be  complementary  phases 
of  the  same  experience?  The  term  social  is  sometimes  applied 
to  mass  action  simply  as  such.  In  this  sense  of  the  term, 
social  action  might  be  the  blindest  sort  of  conduct,  and  it 
might  have  no  regard  for  other  human  masses,  or  even  for  the 
individuals  who  constitute  the  acting  mass.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  term  individual  is  sometimes  used  in  a  way  that 
suggests,  if  it  does  not  assume,  that  individuality  can  be  con- 
strued without  reference  to  any  human  interrelatedness.  Yet 
action  might  conceivably  be  most  highly  individualized  pre- 
cisely where  it  is  most  highly  social,  and  because  it  is  so.  In- 
dividual welfare  might  be  individual  just  because  it  is  shared. 
For  separatistic  self-regard  we  already  have  a  special  term, 
"individualistic,"  but  we  have  no  corresponding  term  for 
mass  action  that  disregards  either  individuals  or  other  masses.^ 
The  crowd  versus  the  deliberative  group.  When  we 
speak  of  the  movement  to  socialize  education  we  should  under- 
stand, not  increase  of  mass  action  merely  as  such,  but  increase 
of  effective  regard  for  one  another — regard  of  individual  for 
individual,  reciprocal  regard  of  the  individual  for  his  group 
and  of  his  group  for  him,  and  regard  of  one  group  for  another. 

» I! Nationalism,"  however,  is  coming  to  mean  something  of  the  sort. 

38 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  39 

Now,  social  living  in  this  sense  involves  as  a  basic  function  in 
education  the  disengaging  of  the  individual  from  the  mass, 
both  in  the  consciousness  of  the  teacher  and  in  that  of  the  pupil. 
Social  education  as  such  indimdualizes  men. 

It  is  sometimes  assumed  that  if  we  only  induce  children  to 
act  together  in  groups  we  shall  thereby  socialize  them.  To 
forget  oneself,  and  gladly  to  expend  one's  energy  upon  something 
that  brings  no  private  profit  has,  in  the  statement  of  it,  an  ethical 
sound.  And  the  sound  is  not  altogether  misleading.  When 
a  small  child  is  allured  beyond  the  solitary  plays  of  infancy 
into  even  the  planless  romping  of  an  unorganized  group  of  chil- 
dren he  unquestionably  makes  a  social  gain.  It  comes  by  the 
way  of  simple  mental  contagion  or  imitation.  But  soon  his 
play,  if  it  is  to  continue  to  be  educational,  will  require  some 
planning,  and  especially  "rules  of  the  game''  and  keeping  the 
score,  all  of  which  must  develop  in  the  players  a  sharper  and 
sharper  realization  of  one  another  as  individuals.  Again, 
adults  as  well  as  children  find  it  wholesome  to  relax  now  and  then 
by  "letting  themselves  go"  for  a  while  with  some  crowd  that  is 
bent  upon  innocent  enjoyment.  But  the  complementary 
truth  is  that  in  the  background  even  of  "letting  go"  there  can 
and  should  be  some  "  choosing  of  our  crowd,"  and  some  trained 
tastes  with  respect  to  what  constitutes  fun. 

Within  mass  action  we  must  therefore  discriminate  two  main 
types,  that  of  the  crowd  and  that  of  the  deliberative  group.  A 
crowd  is  made  up  of  persons  who  in  the  process  of  forgetting 
self  forget  others  also.  What  so  heedless  of  individual  welfare 
as  a  mass  that  is  consolidated  by  forgetting  or  failing  to  take 
notice?  What  so  incapable  of  appreciating  other  groups,  and 
therefore  so  ready  for  partisanship  ?  We  observe  this  not  only 
in  primitive  society,  but  also  close  at  home,  as  in  the  senseless, 
lawless,  sometimes  cruel  conduct  of  student  crowds  and  school- 
boy gangs.  It  is  a  trite  remark  of  social  psychology  that  with- 
out any  compunctions  of  conscience  the  members  of  a  crowd 
often  conduct  themselves  as  nothing  would  induce  them  to  do 
when  they  act  singly. 

In  a  deliberative  group,  on  the  other  hand,  mass  action — 


40  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

so  far  is  it  from  the  crowd  type — stimulates  rather  than  sup- 
presses reflectiveness  and  regard  for  others.  In  fact,  we  have 
here  mass  action  that  arises  and  maintains  itself  precisely  by 
promoting  individuality.  This  is  seen  most  distinctly,  perhaps, 
in  groups  that  have  formal  rules  of  order.  Here,  preliminary  to 
each  common  act,  the  entire  mass  "pauses,  the  chairman  say- 
ing: 'Are  there  any  remarks?'  Then,  as  if  challenging  each 
individual  to  full  self-expression,  he  asks:  *Are  you  ready  for 
the  motion?'  This  procedure  has  been  devised  so  as  to  pre- 
vent action  under  suggestion.  Individual  inhibitions  are  not 
avoided  or  suppressed,  but  invited,  spread  out- for  inspection, 
often  acted  upon  separately  by  dividing  the  question  or  by 
voting  upon  proposed  amendments."^  The  same  social  prin- 
ciple appears  in  many  groups  of  a  less  formal  character.  Thus, 
a  kindergartner  offers  to  retell  the  story  that  is  best  liked, 
whereupon  one  child  says:  "I  like  this  one  best,"  and  another 
child:  "I  like  that  one."  "How  many  Hke  this  one  best?" 
says  the  kindergartner,  "And  how  many  that  one?  Why  do 
you  think  it  the  best?"  and  then  she  acts  according  to  the 
deliberate  preference  of  the  majority.  Similarly  a  recitation 
can  often  take  the  form  of  a  mass  opinion  of  the  deliberative 
sort  on  what  "we  should  do  next."  In  this  way  classes  are 
led,  in  actual  practice,  to  assign  their  own  lessons  and  to  agree 
upon  one  another's  proper  grade. 

Let  it  be  noted,  now,  that  children  of  school  age  act  in  crowds 
without  any  assistance  or  training  from  their  elders,  but 
that  without  such  assistance  the  deliberative  type  of  sociality 
lags.  The  needs  of  the  situation  are  not  met  by  merely  guiding 
crowd  action  toward  worthy  ends — the  group's  mode  of  action 
must  be  transformed  into  co-operative  deliberation.  There  is 
no  security  for  worthy  ends  short  of  the  habit  of  considering 
others'  points  of  view.  Without  such  consideration  party 
government  becomes  tyrannical.  Therefore,  education  for 
society  must  consist  in  no  small  measure  in  replacing  crowd 
action,  and  susceptibility  to  crowd  influences,  by  deliberative 

1 1  have  discussed  these  distinctions  more  at  length  in  chap.  VIII  of  The 
Psychology  of  Religion  (Chicago,  1916). 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  41 

/     groupings  and  by  habitual  readiness  for  reflective  co-opera- 

Motive,  as  well  as  knowledge  and  skill,  must  become 
a  conscious  possession  of  the  pupil.  A  socialized  education 
will  have  four  immediate  aims:  (1)  That  the  pupil  shall  ac- 
quire control  of  the  tools  and  methods  of  social  intercourse, 
such  as  language,  number,  and  various  social  forms  and  con- 
ventions. (2)  That  he  shall  be  favorably  introduced  to 
society  through  happy  acquaintance  with  the  sciences,  liter- 
ature, and  the  arts,  and  through  participation  in  the  present 
social  life.  (3)  That  he  shall  be  trained  for  an  occupation. 
(4)  That  the  motives  of  his  conduct,  that  is,  his  own  individually 
appreciated  and  chosen  ends,  shall  be  intelligently  socialized. 

All  four  of  these  aims  are  included  in  the  educational  aspira- 
tions of  the  day,  but  the  putting  of  aspiration  into  articulated 
theory  and  practice  has  not  proceeded  equally  in  the  four 
directions.  The  problem  of  scales  of  values,  oi  inmost  loyalties, 
_of  life  purposes — of  this  germinating  centre  of  every  growing 
character — this  is  the  educational  problem  that  teachers  are 
taught  least  about,  and  it  is  the  one  with  respect  to  which 
their  plans  and  methods  are  least  definite  and  consistent. 
Along  with  constant  proclamation  of  the  ethical  or  social  pur- 
pose of  the  schools  there  goes  disagreement,  as  well  as  much  hazi- 
ness, as  to  the  particular  ends  and  processes  of  moral  education. 
In  practice  there  are  corresponding  hesitation,  delay,  frag- 
mentariness,  and  opposition  of  methods.  Some  phases  of  the 
problem  of  "direct  or  indirect''  methods  in  moral  education 
must  be  postponed  to  a  later  chapter.  But  we  cannot  complete 
our  present  sketch  of  the  social  conception  of  education  without 
a  preliminary  statement  upon  the  point. 

The  social  aim  in  education  includes  the  purpose  to  produce 
individual  self -guidance  toward  the  social  good.  Now,  such 
self-guidance  implies  both  knowledge  of  social  causes  and 
effects,  and  preference  for  certain  effects  as  against  others. 
Preference  for  social  good  implies  resistance  to  natural,  in- 
stinctive selfishness.  How,  then,  can  we  train  children  to  open- 
eyed  social  conduct  unless  we  train  them  in  social  motives  or 


42  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

preferences;  and  how  can  there  be  discrimination  of  social 
ends  unless  one  thinks  about  one's  own  relation  to  the  social 
whole  and  recognizes  one's  own  tendencies  to  selfishness? 
Self-conquest  is  an  inevitable  phase  of  social  education. 

This  point  of  view  implies,  of  course,  that  the  ethically 
good  has  some  reference  to  the  consequences  of  conduct.  Ethi- 
cal theories  that  deny  this,  holding  that  duty  and  the  good  will 
are  something  in  themselves  regardless  of  satisfactions  of  any 
sort,  or  that  the  goodness  of  an  act  is  measurable  by  some 
quality  of  the  impulse  whence  it  springs — a  quality  that  can 
be  defined  without  any  reference  to  the  foreseen  results  of  the 
act — are  largely  responsible  for  the  confusion  that  prevails  in 
educational  thinking  and  practice  with  respect  to  moral  growth. 
Though  these  types  of  ethical  philosophy  are  generally  giving 
way  before  others  that  define  the  good,  and  duty,  and  the  good 
will  in  terms  of  social  satisfactions  and  social  progress,  the 
educational  significance  of  the  change  has  not  fully  dawned 
upon  the  schools.  We  may  sum  up  the  matter  by  saying  that 
the  pupil  must  be  led  to  form  conscious  life  purposes,  not  by 
comparing  himself  with  some  abstract  ideal  of  duty  or  of  per- 
fection, but  by  considering  the  consequences  of  conduct,  espe- 
cially in  the  welfare  or  illfare  of  others. 

The  educational  use  of  rules  and  of  authority.  What  has 
just  been  said  gives  us  a  clew  to  the  proper  and  the  improper 
use  of  rules  and  of  authority  in  the  school.  At  least  four  theories 
of  the  matter  exist  in  various  mixtures :  (1)  Rules  are  necessary 
because  a  school  cannot  do  its  work  without  them.  True; 
but  how  did  the  teacher  become  competent  to  prescribe  rules, 
and  how  shall  these  children  in  their  turn  be  worthy  to  control 
the  system  of  education?  Parental  authority,  it  is  often  said, 
should  be  so  exercised  as  to  make  itself  unnecessary  in  the  life 
of  the  child  as  early  as  possible.  Does  not  the  same  principle 
-  apply  to  schools  ?  (2)  We  know  what  is  good  for  children 
better  than  they  can  know;  therefore  we  prescribe  for  them. 
No  doubt  we  do  know  better;  but  wouldn't  it  be  worth  while 
to  bring  them  up  so  that  they  will  ultimately  know  even  better 
than  we  do  what  is  good  for  children  ?     If  so,  what  about  simply 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  43 

imposing  our  present  ideas  ?  (3)  Human  experience  has  settled 
some  things,  and  to  these  the  children  simply  must  conform. 
Let  us  have  no  ifs  or  ands  here,  especially  a  child's.  Yes,  we 
have  learned  some  things  by  experience.  But  does  it  seem 
likely  that  a  child  can  learn  them  by  the  utterly  different  sort 
of  experience  that  the  mere  enforcement  of  rules  brings  him? 
How  are  you  to  make  him  see  and  know  that  the  foundations 
of  existing  social  customs  and  institutions  are  sound?  And  if 
he  does  not  see,  but  instead  is  confronted  with  what  seems  to 
him  to  be  mere  power,  what  is  likely  to  happen?  (4)  Some 
things  are  eternally  right,  and  they  simply  must  be.  But  is 
the  eternally  right  actually  realized  in  anything  short  of  the 
free  loyalty  of  the  heart?  Moreover,  who  determines  what  is 
eternally  right  ?  Do  you  maintain  that  capacity  for  apprehend- 
ing it  has  disappeared  from  the  earth  never  to  return?  Do 
you  hold  that  this  capacity  belongs  to  one  class  or  set  of  individ- 
uals exclusively? 

Unless  we  intend  to  have  a  permanent  cleft  in  society  be- 
tween those  who  command  and  those  who  obey,  we  must, 
it  is  now  evident,  so  employ  rules  and  authority  that  they 
shall  be  continuously  passing  into  something  else  as  the  child 
grows.  The  primary  function  of  some  rules,  as  those  that  con- 
cern firearms  and  explosives,  may  be  simply  protection  of  life. 
But  the  educational  use  of  any  rule  lies  essentially  in  furnishing 
the  conditions  that  are  most  favorable  for  deliberative  group 
action.  What  is  required  in  one  case  may  be  postponement  of 
action  until  reflection  can  set  in,  or  until  other  individuals  can 
be  heard  from.  In  other  cases  rules  and  authority  may  so 
dispose  satisfactions  and  dissatisfactions  that  difficult  social 
conduct  is  made  easier  and  unsocial  conduct  less  easy.  This 
is  not  an  approval  of  either  anarchy  or  the  sugar-coating  of  duty 
so  as  ta  conceal  its  real  nature.  What  is  here  insisted  upon  is 
that  pupils  shall  be  able  as  individuals  to  find  present  social 
meaning  and  value  in  their  contacts  with  society  in  the  person 
of  the  teacher.  Whatever  confronts  the  child  at  first  as  a  sheer 
necessity  (the  occasions  for  which  are  far  less  frequent  than  we 
ordinarily  suppose)  must,  even  as  he  faces  it,  melt  into  stimulus 


44  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

to  the  use  of  his  own  judgment  in  ways  that  are  social  and 
pleasurable.^ 
A  social  interpretation  of  the  sacredness  of  personality. 

Something  fine,  and  in  its  way  social,  is  represented  in  the 
phrase,  "the  sacredness  of  personality."  It  means  at  least 
this,  that  we  are  to  place  some  checks  upon  our  conduct  sim- 
ply because  other  persons  are  affected  by  it.  But  the  "sacred" 
or  "set  apart"  may  be  more  or  less  closely  related  to  taboo. 
Does  an  exalted  view  of  the  rights  of  persons  imply  that  there 
is  in  each  individual  something  that  belongs  to  him  in  such  an 
exclusive  sense  that  it  ought  to  be  kept  to  himself,  forever  un- 
shared? Shall  we  not  hold,  rather,  that  personality  is  sacred 
precisely  because  in  free  individuality,  and  in  it  alone,  can  soci- 
ety fully  realize  itself  ?  Personality  is  sacred,  not  from  society, 
but  to  society.  Therefore  nothing  over  which  the  individual  has 
control  is  to  remain  unshared.  There  is  to  be  no  purely  private 
affair.2  Society,  if  it  is  wise,  will,  indeed,  encourage  individual 
initiative,  and  also  the  reticence  that  keeps  the  common  good 
in  the  foreground,  and  not-yet-socialized  impulse  in  the  back- 
ground. Moreover,  intimacies  that  only  a  few  can  share, 
as  in  the  family,  will  be  encouraged,  but  only  as  far  as  their  own 
happy  realization  makes  also  for  the  wider  social  good.  The 
right  of  private  property  will  be  understood,  not  as  a  natural 
right  with  which  one's  fellows  must  not  interfere,  but  as  an  in- 
strument of  society  for  the  nourishment  and  education  of  its 
members,  particularly  in  families. 

The  educational  applications  of  this  conception  of  person- 
ality are  direct  and  vital.     First,  it  tends  to  take  officialism 


1  On  the  playground  of  a  certain  elementary  school  the  penalty  for  foul 
playing  and  for  lying  is  a  week's  exclusion  from  the  plays.  But  the  whole 
management  of  the  playground  is  such  that  even  this  drastic  rule  expresses 
the  social  consciousness  of  the  players.  Result:  Remarkable  objectivity 
of  judgment  concerning  both  one's  own  play  and  that  of  others,  gentlemanly 
acceptance  of  one  another's  word,  correct  scoring,  and  relative  absence  of  dis- 
putes. I  have  witnessed  true  sportsmanship,  and  unclouded  happiness  in  it, 
among  boys  of  eight  and  nine  years  who  were  thus  privileged. 

2  The  evils  of  self-involution  have  been  made  strikingly  evident  by  various 
branches  of  the  psychotherapeutic  movement.  Merely  to  open  one's  whole 
mind  to  another,  whether  physician  or  priest,  often  brings  relief,  inner  eman- 
cipation, and  fresh  social  capacities. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  '    45 

out  of  the  pupil-teacher  relation,  as  it  does  also  out  of  parental 
government.  Only  a  part  of  the  teacher's  business  can  be  put 
into  a  schedule  of  specific  tasks  to  be  performed,  such  as  sub- 
jects to  be  taught  with  this  or  that  degree  of  efficiency.  No 
interest  of  a  pupil  or  phase  of  his  life  is  foreign  to  the  true 
teacher,  for  everything  in  every  child — everything — is  sacred  to 
society.  On  the  other  hand,  everything  in  the  teacher  also  is 
sacred,  and  therefore  to  be  shared  in  due  season.  The  teacher 
and  the  man  are  not  two.  The  teacher-pupil  relation  is  that 
of  reciprocal  self-realization  by  the  sharing  of  experience. 
Happy  the  teachers — there  are  many  of  them — who  through 
their  occupation  have  obtained  not  only  a  living  but  also  life  ! 

Education,  being  an  agency  of  justice,  looks  beyond 
social  averages.  In  the  juvenile  court,  as  we  saw,  justice  to 
the  offending  child  takes  the  form  of  education.  Why  should 
this  be  considered  exceptional?  Is  not  education  as  a  whole 
the  bringing  home  to  each  child  of  what  is  his  due  in  view  of  ^ 
the  upbinding  of  his  life  with  that  of  his  fellows?  Therefore 
the  exceptional  child,  whether  a  backward  pupil  or  an  unusually 
gifted  one,  is  entitled  to  exceptional  teaching.  In  the  end  this 
will  mean,  of  course,  adaptation  to  every  individual,  and 
therefore  important  modifications  of  class  teaching.  We 
shall  thus  discover  that  talent  exists  in  certain  "classes"  of 
the  population  in  greater  measure,  and  in  other  "classes"  in 
smaller  measure,  than  has  been  supposed.  Education  will 
discover  favorable  variations,  and  bring  them  to  social  fruitage. 
Enormous  social  waste  exists  at  present  because  individual 
talent  goes  undiscovered  through  childhood,  and  then  is 
smothered  by  too  early  entrance  into  the  industries.  And 
there  is  ground  for  more  than  a  suspicion  that  the  students 
who  attend  our  institutions  of  higher  education,  where  the 
expenditure  per  pupil  is  highest,  are  not  being  selected  for  this 
post  out  of  the  whole  people  by  rigorous  demonstration  either 
of  superior  talent  or  of  superior  social  spirit  in  the  use  of  talents.^ 

1  Emancipation  of  the  schools  from  the  fallacy  of  social  averages  would 
help  to  rid  us  of  it  in  other  directions.  What  is  the  social  significance  of  such 
statements  as  that  the  average  wealth  of  the  United  States  is  so  or  so  much 
per  person  ?     Or  that  the  average  wage  in  a  given  industry  or  industrial  estab- 


46  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

Shall  the  individual  exist  for  the  state  ?  The  concept  of 
national  efficiency,  which  the  present  war  has  brought  to  our 
attention  with  unprecedented  force,  is  a  challenge  to  educa- 
tional theory  and  practice  in  every  land  that  boasts  the  free- 
dom of  its  citizens.  Can  efficiency  of  the  mass  be  achieved  by 
education  that  disengages  the  individual  consciousness,  and 
puts  it  into  the  attitude  of  mutual  deliberation?  Must  not 
national  policies  be  settled  long  before  the  people  can  arrive 
at  a  deliberate  social  judgment?  Must  not  minorities  be 
ignored  and  even  repressed  lest  they  draft  off  energy  from  the 
main  purpose?  Must  not  even  majorities  be  circumvented 
at  times  because  they  are  clumsy  and  not  overwise  ?  In  short, 
does  not  national  efficiency  ultimately  depend  upon  applying 
human  energy  approximately  after  the  manner  of  a  machine? 
Will  not  the  advantage  always  be  on  the  side  of  a  mechanized 
group  as  against  any  group  in  which  the  members  have  ideas  of 
their  own  and  a  will  of  their  own  with  respect  to  the  work  that 
they  do  ? 

Thoughts  like  these,  which  are  now  in  the  air,  put  in  jeopardy 
what  is  most  vital  to  our  educational  progress.  If  national 
and  international  groupings  are  not  to  be  of  the  deliberative 
type;  if  society  is  to  consist,  even  for  a  part  of  the  time,  of  masses 
of  men  regimented  in  body  and  mind,  the  result  will  be  that  in 
times  of  excitement,  when  deliberation  is  most  necessary,  the 
group  will  become  a  mere  crowd  with  its  impetuous  and  ruth- 
less mode  of  action.  This  view  of  national  efficiency  implies, 
of  course,  corresponding  regimentation  within  the  industries. 
Signs  are  not  lacking  that  this  implication  is  at  least  partly 
understood  by  some  of  the   "captains   of  industry."     They 

lishment  is  so  or  so  much  per  piece,  per  hour,  or  per  day  ?  Or  that  the  general 
level  of  wages  has  risen  a  certain  amount  in  a  given  period  ?  An  industrial 
commission  recently  listened  to  an  argument  for  seven-day  labor  in  a  certain 
steel-mill  on  the  ground  that  the  average  time  ofif  is,  or  will  be,  as  much 
as  one  day  in  seven  anyway.  Shall  we  base  a  minimum  wage  for  men  upon 
the  average  family,  or  for  women  upon  the  average  cost  of  decent  Uving  for 
a  woman  upon  whom  no  one  is  dependent  ?  There  is  no  room  for  doubt  that 
we  are  concealing  social  truth  from  ourselves  by  thinking  of  mankind  as 
made  up  of  masses,  classes,  and  averages.  The  average  man,  or  pupil,  or 
welfare,  is  a  mental  construct  of  statisticians.  To  govern  education  or  the 
conditions  of  social  welfare  by  mere  averages  is  to  render  oiu*  dealings  with 
actual  men  and  actual  pupils  more  or  less  fictitious  and  unjust. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  47 

should  reflect  that  regimentation  of  labor  means  ultimately 
crowd  action  by  laborers. 

It  is  possible  to  cling  to  the  semblance  of  freedom  when  the 
soul  of  it  has  departed.  Not  all  submission  is  irksome.  The 
members  of  any  crowd  feel  emancipated  when  unreflective 
contagion  is  at  its  height;  at  the  moment  when  a  designing 
leader  makes  tools  of  them,  they  imagine  that  he  leads  by 
virtue  of  their  free  choice.  This  is  the  pseudofreedom  of 
irresponsibility.  It  may  easily  seem  preferable  to  the  birth- 
pangs  of  real  liberty.  Let  us  not  be  blind  to  the  possibility 
that,  under  the  influence  of  some  nation-wide  emotion,  our 
public  schools,  instead  of  going  steadily  forward  toward  de- 
mocracy, which  must  be  deliberative,  may  be  made  instruments 
for  fastening  upon  the  people  one  or  another  class  control 
concealed  under  such  specious  concepts  as  efficiency,  patriot- 
ism, and  self-sacrifice.^ 

The  cost  of  a  socialized  education.  We  have  reached 
the  conclusion  that  socialized  education,  precisely  because  it 
is  social,  must  be  individualized.  The  alternatives  that  have 
to  be  considered  are  not  "social  vs.  individual,"  but  "social  vs. 
individualistic,"  and  "society  vs.  a  class  within  itself."     In- 

1  Do  we  realize  the  import,  as  respects  our  liberties,  of  the  recent  merciless 
hazing  of  militiamen  to  compel  them  to  enter  the  military  service  of  the 
United  States,  the  hazers  and  the  hazed  both  being  mider  miUtary  command 
at  the  time  ?  In  the  free  land  to  the  north  of  us  a  newspaper  was  suspended 
by  military  order  because  of  an  editorial  opinion  that  Canada  had  already 
furnished  her  proper  quota  of  soldiers  for  the  European  war,  and  that  en- 
listments should  cease.  In  the  same  land  a  recruiting  officer  may  accost 
a  citizen  upon  the  streets,  and  tease  him  any  number  of  times,  but  if  a  citizen 
repUes  disrespectfully  he  subjects  himself  to  legal  penalties.  It  is  a  fair 
question  whether  war  can  be  engaged  in  by  any  free  people  without  sacrifice  of 
liberty  within  its  own  borders.  For,  must  not  miUtary  control  extend  not 
only  to  industries  and  to  consumption,  but  also  to  communication  between 
men,  which  is  a  fundamental  process  in  any  popvilar  government  ?  Is  it  not  of 
the  essence  of  war  to  repress  criticism  of  military  acts  and  poUcies  ?  Repres- 
sion begins  by  egging  on  those  who  are  willing  to  hm-l  disrespectful  epithets 
at  their  fellow  citizens.  This  of  itself  interferes  with  conditions  that  are 
necessary  to  the  life  of  a  deliberative  group.  But  this  informal  censorship, 
which  is  of  the  crowd  type,  is  crowned  by  a  legaUzed  censorship  which,  what- 
ever its  conscious  purpose,  has  the  effect  of  party  government  maintaining 
its  policies  and  perpetuating  its  control  by  force.  The  inference  to  be  drawn 
from  this  is  that  government  by  the  people  has  a  vital  interest  in  discovering 
some  way  to  end  war  forever.  There  will  be  no  security  for  democracy  until 
peace  is  assured.  This^truth  has  educational  consequences  the  full  considera- 
tion of  which  must  be  postponed  to  another  chapter. 


48  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

dlvidualistlc  education  need  not  be  costly,  but  individualized 
education  must  be.  For,  first,  It  will  require  educational  diag- 
nosis, and  educational  adaptation,  with  respect  to  each  pupil, 
and  therefore  a  larger  budget;  second,  it  will  undertake  the  hard- 
est of  educational  tasks,  which  is  the  production  of  self-sacrifice, 
and  therefore  will  call  for  the  highest  training  of  teachers; 
third,  it  will  make  the  new  generation  discontented  with  the 
social-economic  order.  Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  third 
of  these  items,  and  In  a  subsequent  paragraph  return  to  the 
second. 

To  make  children  deliberately  social  implies  In  the  first  place 
that  impulsive  good-heartedness  must  be  transformed  into 
steady,  reflective  good-will.  It  implies,  further,  that  mere 
rules  of  conduct  toward  others,  as  giving  money  or  goods  to  the 
unfortunate,  are  to  be  supplemented  by  a  habit  of  reflection 
upon  the  situation  of  others  as  Individuals,  that  is,  a  habit  of 
putting  oneself  in  their  place.  This  will  lead  straight  to  the 
question,  Why  should  their  situation  be  what  It  Is  ?  Why  need 
there  be  poverty  ?  Why^  is  there  so  much  sickness  ?  Is  there 
sufficient  knowledge,  and  are  there  anywhere  sufficient  re- 
sources to  remove  in  any  large  measure  the  causes  of  poverty 
and  of  disease?  If  so,  why  are  not  knowledge  and  resources 
applied  to  these  primary  human  necessities?  What  is  it  that 
stands  in  the  way  of  the  widest  distribution  of  human  welfare  ? 

When  we  teach  the  young  to  think  socially  they  will  not  re- 
gard social  classes  and  economic  class  conditions  as  naturally 
predetermined  and  static,  but  rather  as  a  sphere  for  the  de- 
liberate justice  that  values  human  life  supremely,  and  that 
values  things  and  even  rights  only  as  they  actually  minister  to 
life.  Moreover,  such  teaching,  with  its  tendency  to  produce 
deliberative  group  action,  will  lead  the  inheritors  and  the  dis- 
inherited to  sit  together  In  calm  judgment  upon  the  justice  of 
their  respective  situations,  and  upon  the  possibility  of  a  more 
,just,  that  is  to  say  humane,  distribution  of  opportunities  for 
adequate  living. 

The  result  is  bound  to  be  discontent  with  the  existing  social 
order.     It  is  futile  to  think  that  any  effective  teaching  of  de- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  49 

mocracy,  or  of  the  supreme  value  of  human  Hfe,  will  leave  un- 
challenged the  present  control  which  a  few  exercise  over  the 
conditions  of  life — mental  and  moral  as  well  as  bodily  life — of 
the  many.  The  outcome  must  be,  not  alone  increased  doing 
for  others,  but  also  surrender  into  their  own  hands  of  the  means 
to  do  for  themselves.  Not  less  than  this  will  be  the  cost  of  a 
really  socialized  education. 

Consequences  with  respect  to  the  theory  of  interest. 
The  doctrine  of  interest  in  education,  stated  most  generally, 
runs  to  the  effect  that  the  material  of  instruction  must  be 
chosen  and  graded,  and  methods  of  teaching  devised,  so  that 
the  activities  of  the  pupil  in  the  learning  process  will  produce 
spontaneous  pleasure,  and  therefore  be  performed  from  free 
internal  impulsion  rather  than  from  external  pressure  emanating 
from  the  teacher.  The  pupil  is  not  to  be  driven,  but  led;  and 
he  is  not  to  be  led  by  any  and  everything  but  by  the  inherent 
value  of  the  material  or  of  the  enterprise  from  his  own 
point  of  view.  At  first  sight  this  may  seem  to  imply  "soft 
pedagogy,"  which  follows  the  whims  of  the  child,  letting  him 
do  what  he  likes  instead  of  seeing  that  he  does  what  is  good 
for  him.  This  would  be  the  consequence  if  children  were  shut 
up  by  nature  to  a  single  interest  at  each  period  of  time.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact  diversity  and  mobility  of  interest  are  prime 
characteristics  of  childhood.  The  educator  always  has  several 
possible  interests  between  w^hich  to  choose,  and  therefore  it  is 
possible  to  feed  one  repeatedly  while  allowing  another  to 
atrophy  from  lack  of  exercise.  This  is  not  the  same  as  following 
a  child's  whims,  nor  is  it  equivalent  to  indulging  him  in  doing 
what  is  easy  and  avoiding  what  is  hard.  On  the  contrary,  the 
theory  of  interest  requires  us  to  put  before  the  pupil  what  is 
inherently  so  attractive  that  he  will  work  hard  with  a  feeling 
that  the  enterprise  belongs  to  him  as  a  part  of  himself.  This 
individualizing  of  what  one  is  doing  as  one's  very  own  is  essen- 
tially what  we  mean  by  interest. 

In  point  of  technic  the  first  requirement  for  social  education 
is  socialization  of  the  habitual  interests  of  the  pupil  with  re- 
spect to  his  school  work.    This  implies,  first  of  all,  choosing 


50  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

material  of  instruction  and  arranging  the  conditions  of  school 
life  so  that  instinctive  social  satisfactions  shall  be  the  basal 
ones.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  pupil  must  be  helped  to  ad- 
vance beyond  the  unreflectlve  level  of  instinct.  He  must  be 
led  up  to  the  point  of  self-denial.  He  must  be  Initiated  into  the 
great  paradox  of  personality,  which  Is,  ability,  after  facing  an 
easier  and  a  harder  alternative,  to  choose  the  harder  as  one's 
very  own,  and  thus  determine  where  one's  satisfactions  shall 
He.  The  social  way  is  not  that  of  smug  self-security  through 
canny  control  of  others,  but  of  self-sacrifice  for  them.  We  shall 
never  stabilize  human  relations  by  playing  off  one  selfish  in- 
terest against  another,  but  only  by  freely  sacrificing  selfish 
interest,  only  by  taking  into  one's  individual  will  the  very  thing 
that  opposes  it. 

Here  is  where  the  teacher's  view  of  interest  in  education 
will  meet  its  severest  test.  Shall  the  last  appeal  to  the  pupil 
be  addressed  to  selfish  interest,  or  to  unselfish  ?  Can  the  teacher 
reveal  in  his  own  conduct,  and  demonstrate  to  the  pupils  by 
their  own  guided  experiments  in  living,  that  to  live  we  must 
lose  our  individualistic  life  ? 


PART  II 

THE   SOCIAL  INTERPRETATION 

OF  CHRISTIANITY  REQUIRES  SOCIAL 

RECONSTRUCTION   IN   RELIGIOUS 

EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  AIMS  OF  CHRISTIAN  EDUCATION 

Traditions  as  to  the  aim  of  Christian  education.    The 

aim  has  been  conceived  in  all  of  the  following  ways: 

(1)  That  the  purpose  is  to  instruct  the  child  in  the  things 
that  a  Christian  ought  to  know.  Back  of  this  purpose  lies  an 
assumption  that  our  religion  consists  primarily  of  a  completed, 
authoritative  revelation  concerning  God  and  duty  that  needs 
merely  to  be  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation. 

(2)  That  the  purpose  is  to  prepare  the  child  for  full  member-  *' 
ship  iri  the  church.  This  definition  rests  upon  such  assump- 
tions as  that  the  church  is  the  authoritative  expositor  and  ad- 
ministrator of  the  fixed  revelation  just  referred  to,  or  that  the 
will  of  God  is  to  be  done  on  earth  by  drawing  men  into  a  par- 
ticular society  of  the  saved. 

(3)  That  the  purpose  is  to  save  the  child's  soul  here  and  here- 
after. Behind  this  lie  the  dogmas  of  depravity,  guilt,  and  re- 
demption out  of  the  world  as  distinguished  from  redemption  of 
the  world. 

(4)  That  the  purpose  is  unfoldment  of  religious  capacities,- 
or  of  a  germinal  di\ane  life,   already  within  the  individual. 
Here  we  witness  the  influence  of  idealism,  with  its  doctrine  of 
the  eternal  within  the  temporal,  the  infinite  in  the  finite,  and 
with  its  maxims  regarding  free  self-expression. 

(5)  That  the  purpose  is  the  production  of  Christian  char-  ■ 
acter.  This  may  mean  any  one  of  several  different  things 
according  to  the  view  that  is  taken  of  "Christian  character." 
In  the  statement  as  it  stands  there  is,  for  example,  no  discrimi- 
nation between  the  notion  of  a  merely  individual  goodness  or 
merely  individual  relation  to  God,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 

53 


64  THE  AIMS 

contradictory  view  that  genuine  goodness  can  never  be  merely 
individual  and  that  the  Christian  God  permits  no  merely  in- 
dividual reconciliation  with  him. 

Without  denying  that  in  each  of  these  aims  there  is  some- 
thing that  is  worthy  of  permanence,  we  may  assert  that  they  do 
not,  either  singly  or  collectively,  do  justice  to  the  social  ideal- 
ism that  characterizes  the  most  vigorous  Christian  thought  of 
the  day. 

The  ideal  of  a  democracy  of  God  as  the  determinant  of 
ultimate  ends.  I  use  the  term  "democracy  of  God*'  in  place 
of  "kingdom  of  God,"  not  because  I  desire  to  substitute  a  new 
social  principle  for  that  which  Jesus  taught,  but  because  the 
idea  of  democracy  is  essential  to  full  appreciation  of  his  teach- 
ing. After  making  all  needful  allowances  for  the  influence  of 
contemporary  political  and  religious  conditions  upon  his  modes 
of  speech  and  the  content  of  his  thought — allowances  that  are 
to  be  determined  by  New  Testament  criticism — the  fact  re- 
mains that  his  desire  for  a  brotherhood  of  men  leads  on  with 
the  inevitableness  of  fate  to  the  ideal  of  a  democratic  organiza- 
tion of  human  society,  and  that  his  fusion  of  divine  with  human 
love  presents  us  with  a  divine-human  democracy  as  a  final 
social  ideal. 

Without  doubt  this  view  of  the  Christian  life  has  been  hast- 
ened by  our  experiments  in  popular  government,  and  by  our 
experience  of  social  strains  connected  with  the  new  economic 
order.  These  modern  factors  have  contributed  to  Christian 
thought  partly  by  challenging  social  conditions  and  assump- 
tions that  had  been  accepted  by  Christian  teaching  as  the  very 
sphere  in  which  the  Christian  life  is  to  be  lived.  Instead  of 
being  a  Christian  within  these  limitations,  we  are  asked  why  we 
should  not  remove  the  limitations.  The  virtue  of  feeding  the 
hungry,  for  example,  loses  something  of  its  impressiveness  un- 
less it  is  combined  with  determination  to  find  and  remove  the 
causes  of  poverty.  A  re-examination  of  prophetism,  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  included,  has  made  it  clear  that  thinking  upon 
ethical  problems,  and  upon  the  will  of  God,  in  terms  of  social 
causes  and  effects  belongs  within  Christian  teaching;   it  is  not 


THE  AIMS  55 

merely  a  modern  accretion  or  fashion.  On  the  other  hand,  mod- 
ern conditions  have  helped  to  reveal  the  mind  of  Christ  by  dis- 
pla^'ing  more  significant  outlets  for  the  ancient  sentiment  of 
brotherly  love.  When  the  business  relations  of  most  men  were 
limited  to  a  small  circle  of  neighbors,  good  will  seemed,  naturally 
enough,  to  find  its  circumference  in  the  misfortunes  that  fell 
under  one's  own  eye.  But  the  enlargement  of  our  social  horizon 
by  the  enormous  increase  of  human  intercourse,  together  with 
the  realization  that  a  man's  ballot  counts  simply  because  he  is  a 
man,  reflects  itself  in  a  vast  enlargement  of  meaning  in  the 
command  that  we  love  our  neighbors  as  ourselves. 

Therefore  such  questions  as  the  following  are  becoming  a  prime  "V 
concern  of  Christian  tliought:  If  one  human  life  outweighs  a  \ 
world,  as  Jesus  taught,  what  should  we  do  with  a  social  order  j 
that  stunts  multitudes  of  human  lives  for  the  sake  of  money, 
and  does  it,  not  by  disobedience  to  the  laws  of  the  state,  but 
under  the  protection  of  laws  and  of  courts  ?  How  can  we  really 
believe  in  human  brotherhood  if  we  are  willing  to  acquiesce  in 
a  stratification  of  society  into  the  servers  and  the  served,  the 
rulers  and  the  ruled?  Moreover,  if  brotherly  love  is,  as  our 
religion  has  always  taught,  the  carrying  out  of  the  Father's 
loving  will  in  human  relations,  how  can  the  Father  himself  be 
willing  to  be  an  autocrat,  an  aristocrat,  or  a  plutocrat?  Must 
not  Christians  think  of  God  as  being  within  human  society 
in  the  democratic  manner  of  working,  helping,  sacrificing,  per- 
suading, co-operating,  achieving?  "My  Father  worketh  even 
until  now,  and  I  work."  Divine  love,  it  appears,  cannot  ^realize 
itself  anywhere  but  in  a  genuine  industrial  democracy. 

Granted  this  social  idealism  as  the  interpretation  of  the 
life  that  now  is,  the  aim  of  Christian  education  becomes 
this :  Growth  of  the  young  toward  and  into  mature  and  efficient 
devotion  to  the  democracy  of  God,  a7id  happy  self-realization 
therein. 

The  aim  is  growth  because  there  is  now  no  separation  be- 
tween human  society  and  divine,  and  because  the  rudimentary 
conditions  of  human  society  are  already  provided  for  in  our 
social  instincts. 


56  THE  AIMS 

The  aim  is  devotion  to  a  cause,  not  the  attainment  of  a  status. 
Whoever  thinks  that  Christian  education  has  achieved  its 
main  end  with  any  pupil  when  it  has  led  him  to  cross  a  line 
that  separates  the  saved  from  the  unsaved — whoever  thinks 
this  misses  the  meaning  of  love.  Love  is  active,  outgoing. 
The  lover  accepts  no  security  that  does  not  include  his  loved 
ones. 

Moreover,  because  the  aim  is  active  devotion,  Christian  edu- 
cation does  not  consist  primarily  in  the  transference  of  a  set  of 
ideas  from  one  generation  to  another,  but  rather  in  the  cultiva- 
tion of  intelligent  will.  When  our  will  is  in  accord  with  the 
loving  purpose  of  God,  we  have  the  good  heart,  the  life  that 
is  from  above. 

Though  the  goodness  of  such  a  will  must  be  measured  by  its 
intent  rather  than  by  its  power,  the  only  test  for  the  Christian 
education  of  the  will  lies  in  increase  of  the  social  efficiency  of  our 
pupils.  There  can  be  no  successful  Christian  education  that 
does  not  increase  the  amount  of  effective,  not  merely  senti- 
mental, brotherhood  in  the  world. 

Efficiency  in  achieving  these  ends  must  be  measured  by  con- 
crete evidence  such  as  health,  food,  laws,  ballot-boxes,  homes, 
streets,  schools,  happy  children,  and  happy  husbands  and  wives. 
Patience  or  any  other  virtue  on  a  pedestal  is  unconvincing.      ^' 

In  and  through  his  growing  participation  in  the  creation  of 
an  ideal  society  the  pupil  will  realize  his  fellowship  with  the 
Father.  Not  by  release  from  toil  or  from  the  turmoil  of  social 
endeavor,  not  by  any  retirement  within  himself  as  an  individual, 
will  the  growing  child  achieve  a  mature  Christian  experience, 
but  only  by  doing  God's  social  will  even  to  the  point  of  suffering 
with  him.^ 

In  this  losing  of  his  individualism  the  pupil  will  gain  life.  He 
will  gain  it,  not  in  the  ascetic  sense  of  despising  satisfactions, 

*  This  does  not  deny  all  value  to  times  of  retirement.  When  they  are 
not  a  method  of  evading  or  forgetting  the  issue,  but  of  gathering  up  one's 
powers  to  meet  it,  they  are  as  Christian  as  hours  of  active  labor.  Moreover, 
eesthetic  contemplation  of  nature  or  of  art  is  a  fitting  thing  for  a  child  of  God 
whenever  it  does  not  separate  itself  from  the  purpose  of  putting  all  of  God's 
children  into  possession  of  their  proper  eesthetic  heritage. 


THE  AIMS  57 

not  in  the  mystical  sense  of  denying  value  to  the  individual, 
but  in  the  social  sense  of  individual  satisfactions  that  are  height- 
ened because  they  are  shared.  Everything  that  is  worth  while, 
from  health  to  good  music,  from  play  to  scientific  learning, 
from  food  to  friendship,  will  be  most  worth  while  when  the  dis- 
tribution of  it  is  most  wide.  Here  will  be  found  Christian  peace 
because  feverish  calculation  of  benefits  to  one's  little  self  has 
ceased.  Here  will  grow  Christian  joy  in  a  fellowship  of  endeavor 
so  profound  that  it  can  rejoice  even  in  tribulation.  Here  hope 
lifts  up  its  head  unabashed  by  the  vastness  of  time  and  the 
tragic  frailty  of  life.  This  is  the  life  of  faith,  which  is  the  iden- 
tification of  one's  very  self  with  ideal  good. 

Social  issues  of  the  present  as  determiners  of  the  end. 
When  we  ask  a  Sunday-school  teacher  what  he  is  trying  to 
accomplish  with  his  class,  the  reply  that  we  commonly  receive 
is  that  he  is  endeavoring  to  make  his  pupils  Christians.  But 
if  we  examine  the  text-book  that  is  in  use,  or  listen  to  the  con- 
versation between  teacher  and  pupil  during  the  class  session, 
or  observe  the  general  exercises  of  the  school,  how  much  con- 
sciousness do  we  find  of  the  concrete  situations  wherein  lie  the 
issues  of  to-day  between  the  love  of  the  Father  and  the  love  of 
the  world?  In  most  cases  we  behold  an  effort  to  make  pupils 
Christians  in  a  general,  unfocalized  sense,  which  is  almost 
certain  to  encourage  a  private,  ineffective  sort  of  goodness. 
The  expression  of  this  goodness  in  palliative  benevolence  may 
even  beget  self-deception  as  to  the  Christian  quality  of  one's 
character.  Softening  the  inhumane  results  of  an  unjust  social 
order  can  partially,  but  not  adequately,  represent  the  Christian 
purpose.  Let  us  teach  pupils  to  respond  heartily  to  the  call  of 
distress,  but  let  us  not  lull  them  into  spiritual  slumber  by  rep- 
resenting charitableness  as  the  luxury  of  the  good. 

We  must  reveal  the  terrible  meaning  of  love.  Suppose  that 
parental  love  should  suddenly  acquire  power  to  deal  as  it  likes 
with  everything  that  blasts  or  stunts  the  life  of  offspring;  sup- 
pose that  wives  and  husbands  could  deal  as  love  would  dictate 
with  every  human  condition  that  tends  to  break  up  the  happi- 
ness of  families;   suppose  that  a  neighbor  could  do  as  a  neigh- 


58  THE  AIMS 

bor  would  like  to  do  with  everything  that  injures  one's  neigh- 
bor; suppose  that  welfare  workers  could  control  the  causes  of 
illfare;  suppose  that  every  business  and  business  method,  every 
law,  all  civil  and  criminal  administration  were  to  be  halted 
until  it  could  prove  that  it  is  an  expression  of  human  good 
will;  suppose  that  love  in  all  these  relations  should  suddenly 
insist  upon  having  its  way — ^what  wreckage  of  our  social  as- 
sumptions and  standards  should  we  witness  !  Religious  educa- 
tion must  bring  to  the  light,  discredit,  undermine,  attack,  these 
assumptions  and  standards.  It  must  be  clear  in  its  own  mind 
that  the  vocation  of  the  Christian  is  not  to  be  as  benevolent 
as  an  unbenevolent  occupation  permits,  but  also  to  re-create 
the  social  system  that  tends  to  restrict  the  sphere  of  good  will 
1  in  his  daily  occupation.  The  social  issues  of  the  present,  then, 
•  must  be  taken  as  the  call  of  God  to  our  pupils,  and  as  the  sphere 
of  entire  consecration  to  the  will  of  God. 

These  issues  may  be  conveniently  classified  under  three  heads: 

(1)  Social  welfare,  which  has  to  do  with  the  control  of  the 
non-human  environment  in  the  interest  of  human  life.  Here 
belong  relief  work  of  every  kind;  the  fight  against  disease, 
especially  at  the  present  moment  against  tuberculosis,  syphilis, 
and  gonorrhea;  the  fight  against  the  saloon;  the  struggle  for 
proper  housing;  for  adequate  wages ;  for  good  conditions  of 
labor;  for  short  hours  of  labor;  for  provision  against  accidents, 
illness,  unemployment,  and  old  age,  and  for  facilities  for  cul- 
ture and  for  recreation. 

(2)  Social  justice,  which  has  to  do  with  each  man  as  a  factor 
in  the  life  of  some  other  man.  Justice  to  the  child  means  the 
abolition  of  child  labor,  provision  for  the  best  education,  pro- 
vision for  play,  and  protection  from  unwholesome  influences. 
Justice  as  respects  family  relations  implies  a  life-and-death 
fight  against  the  disintegrating  influences  that  are  all  too  evi- 
dent. Justice  to  the  citizen  requires  that  he  be  enfranchised 
in  fact  and  not  merely  in  form,  and  that  partisanship  and  civic 
corruption,  both  of  which  circumvent  and  depress  the  franchise, 
be  overcome.  Justice  with  respect  to  the  criminal  requires 
that  society  shall  requite  his  evil  with  good — the  good  of  oppor- 


THE  AIMS  59 

tunity  for  a  better  life  and  help  toward  it — and  that  the  mak- 
ing of  criminals  by  social  forces  shall  stop.  Justice  to  each  man 
as  a  man  commands  that  we  find  ways  to  rebuild  our  indus- 
trial and  economic  system,  which  at  present  invites  each  man 
to  grab  what  he  can  of  the  free  gifts  of  nature,  and  then  to 
grab  what  he  can  of  the  products  of  other  men's  toil.  A 
brotherly  economic  order  will  be  vastly  different  from  regu- 
lated grabbing,  mere  selfishness  made  respectable  by  rules 
of  moderation;  it  will  be  nothing  less  than  love  employing  law 
as  a  means  for  securing  the  maximum  benefit  of  every  person 
in  the  industrial  commonwealth. 

(3)  ^  world  society,  or  the  regulation  of  the  conduct  of  each 
social  group  with  respect  to  other  groups  in  such  a  way  as  to 
promote  the  integration  of  all  mankind  into  a  single,  demo- 
cratically governed  brotherhood.  What  justice  requires  from 
each  individual  in  his  relations  with  his  neighbor  is  required 
also  from  each  nation  in  its  relations  with  other  nations.  The 
idea  of  the  sovereignty,  that  is  to  say  the  irresponsibility,  of 
the  state  may  possibly  represent  a  stage  in  the  social  integra- 
tion of  men,  and  therefore  not  a  fall  from  brotherhood  but 
progress  toward  it.  But  the  same  is  true  of  tribal  morals. 
Like  tribal  society,  nationalism  is  at  best  nothing  more  than  a 
step  in  a  stairway;  to  pause  here  as  though  we  had  reached 
finality  is  as  unjust  as  to  rest  in  prenational  achievements. 
Patriotism  must  melt  into  a  larger  regard  for  men.  Is  it  not 
monstrous  to  find  twentieth-century  Christians  less  cosmo- 
politan than  the  ancient  non-Christian  maxim:  "Nothing  hu- 
man is  foreign  to  me"?  Religious  education  must  take  up  as 
one  of  its  specific  tasks  the  production  in  its  pupils  of  a  world- 
consciousness  controlled  by  a  sense  of  justice. 

Amelioration  of  the  horrors  of  war,  important  as  it  is,  is  not 
enough.  War  does  not  merely  happen  to  us,  like  earthquakes 
and  tidal  waves;  it  is  rather  a  climactic  expression  of  the  selfish- 
ness, that  is  to  say  the  injustice,  that  is  organized  in  our  legal 
systems  and  our  national  sovereignties.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
same  economic  grab  that  erects  seizure  of  natural  resources 
into  a  right  to  them,  and  then  makes  laborers  into  hirelings. 


60  THE  AIMS 

The  inner  reality  of  war,  of  armaments,  of  national  sovereignty, 
and  of  national  policies  that  seem  to  render  armaments  neces- 
sary must  all  be  revealed  to  our  pupils  so  that  they  shall  enlist 
— heart,  conscience,  intelligence — in  a  lifelong,  never-relaxing 
crusade  against  the  legalized  injustice  that  underlies  them  all, 
and  for  positive  measures  for  organizing  good  will  on  a  world- 
wide scale.  Nothing  less  than  this  can  be  the  will  of  God,  who 
is  love. 

Are  the  social  issues  of  the  present  the  affair  of  adults 
only,  or  of  children  also  ?  It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted 
that  if  the  specific  social  issues  of  the  present  are  to  be  intro- 
duced into  the  Sunday-school  curriculum  at  all,  the  proper 
place  for  them  is  in  the  adult  class  or  at  most  in  the  later  years 
of  adolescence.  Up  to  this  point  the  instruction  and  training 
are  directed  to  the  formation  of  such  good  habits  as  obedience, 
truthfulness,  and  fair  play;  induction  into  such  exercises  as 
private  prayer  and  public  worship,  and  into  such  enterprises 
as  missions;  and  a  meagre  introduction  to  social  welfare  in  the 
form  of  relief  of  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  other  sufferers,  and  in 
some  instances  in  the  form  of  the  fight  against  the  saloon.  Not 
^a  word  is  ordinarily  said  to  children  and  young  people  with 
respect  to  the  enormous  extent  of  poverty  and  the  reasons  there- 
for, nor  as  to  the  reasons  why  preventable  sickness  is  so  prev- 
alent, nor  as  to  the  interest  of  fundamental  justice  in  such 
current  events  as  labor  disputes  and  international  friction. 
There  is,  probably,  a  sincere  belief  that  tender  minds  should 
be  shielded  from  the  luridness  of  the  contrast  between  Fifth 
Avenue  and  First  Avenue,  and  between  the  multimillionaire 
and  his  employees.  These  are  felt  to  be  the  hard  problems  of 
maturity,  not  at  all  subject-matter  for  the  instruction  of 
children. 

But  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  While  we  thus  sleep  the 
enemy  sows  tares.  From  infancy  the  pupil  is  in  contact  with 
the  social  order  as  it  is;  through  this  contact  he  is  forming 
habits,  and  not  only  habits,  but  also  the  presuppositions  of 
his  thinking  with  respect  to  men  and  society.  He  meets  the 
industrial   system   in   many   cases   in   the   family   "servant," 


THE  AIMS  61 

and  in  all  cases  in  the  various  purveyors  of  the  goods  that  the 
family  consumes.  He  forms  very  early  in  life  his  notions  of 
buying,  selling,  bargaining,  and  employing.  The  current 
ideas  as  to  what  constitutes  success  he  takes  as  his  own  just  as 
a  sponge  soaks  up  water.  The  unrighteous  standards  all  about 
him  constantly  whisper:  "This  is  real  life;  this  is  what  hu- 
man nature  is;  this  is  what  everybody  does;  grab  your  share  !" 
He  gets  acquainted  with  newspapers  and  with  newspaper 
morality  long  before  the  Sunday  school  even  mentions  problems 
of  social  righteousness.  He  is  aware  of  the  general  run  of  cur- 
rent events,  and  he  interprets  them  incautiously  under  the  in- 
fluence of  whatever  social  standard  happens  to  get  his  ear.  If, 
then,  education  postpones  mentioning  these  great  issues  until 
the  near  approach  of  maturity,  it  has  to  correct  social  pre- 
suppositions and  purposes  already  formed.  Shall  we  forever 
go  on  making  the  foolish  assumption  that  the  ^(Vill  of  the  child 
remains  neutral  for  years  and  years  with  regard  to  the  con- 
test between  justice  and  injustice  ?  Shall  we  go  on  postponing 
in  education  what  is  not  and  cannot  be  postponed  in  the  child's 
social  experience? 

Some  consequences  of  not  focussing  the  pupiPs  atten- 
tion upon  concrete  social  issues.  Ethical  reality  is  found  in 
social  relations,  and  nowhere  else.  Here  and  here  only  are 
the  issues  of  conscience  and  of  character.  Hence  it  is  that, 
when  the  ideals  that  religious  education  seeks  to  inculcate 
lack  social  insight  and  breadth,  results  like  these  follow: 

(1)  The  pupil  is  led  to  struggle  against  faults  conceived  as 
simply  his  own  instead  of  for  co-operative  objects  that  will  super- 
sede his  faults  and  help  some  one  else  at  the  same  time.  Whenever 
we  lead  a  child  to  think  that  he  alone  is  blameworthy  for  his 
faults,  we  err  as  to  the  facts.  A  faulty  will,  as  distinguished 
from  mere  inexperience,  always  involves  a  conjoint  fault  in 
which  adults  have  some  share.  The  child  has  taken  on  the 
selfish  ways  of  adults,  and  then  been  blamed  for  doing  so;  or 
adults  have  indulged  or  neglected  childish  impulses  that  require 
training;  or  adults  have  misunderstood  and  mistrained  him. 
The  cure  for  these  conjoint  faults  is  not  introversion  of  the 


62  THE  AIMS 

child  mind,  but  enlargement  of  social  outlook  and  purpose, 
particularly  in  co-operation  with  adults. 

(2)  The  pupil  is  led  into  unwholesome,  sometimes  paralyzing 
introspection  of  the  ups  and  downs  of  his  inner  life,  or  into  fruit- 
less reflection  upon  his  status  in  the  eyes  of  God.  That  is, 
religious  education  that  ought  to  fix  the  pupil's  attention  upon 
the  things  that  express  the  outgoing,  self-forgetting  character 
of  the  Father,  does  exactly  the  contrary.  Consequently  pupils 
form  petty  and  distorted  notions  of  the  divine.  God  is  taken 
to  be  a  taskmaster,  or  spy,  or  aristocrat  instead  of  a  worker 
with  whom  all  workers  can  have  fellowship,  and  from  whom  all 
can  get  help. 

(3)  The  machinery  of  the  church,  and  exercises  that  go  on 
within  church  buildings  acquire  undue  prominence  as  compared 
with  the  influence  that  the  church  has  upon  the  world  that  sur- 
rounds it.  Ecclesiasticism,  it  is  true,  readily  associates  itself 
with  remedial  charity  even  to  the  point  of  noble  self-sacrifice. 
But  this  is  not  the  same  as  devotion  to  justice  in  the  broadly 
human  sense,  which  is  also  the  broadly  divine  and  democratic 
sense.  On  this  broad  basis  churchmanship,  and  all  ecclesias- 
tical zeal  and  loyalty,  have  to  be  judged,  like  the  love  of  one's 
country,  by  their  tendency  to  pass  or  not  to  pass  through  all 
narrower  societies  into  world  society. 

(4)  The  pupil  is  led  to  separate  his  daily  occupation,  the  sphere 
in  which  he  makes  a  living  or  accumidates  property,  from  his 
Christian  vocation.  Instead  of  trying  to  Christianize  his  busi- 
ness, he  endeavors  to  be  a  Christian  in  business.  Consequently 
he  imagines  that  he  fulfils  the  law  of  love  when  he  gives  away, 
by  his  own  arbitrary  act,  some  part  of  a  product  that  is  due  to 
the  joint  labor  of  many  besides  himself.  If  wealth  be  his,  he 
is  taught  to  think  of  himself  as  a  divinely  appointed  steward, 
even  though  traces  of  God's  love  are  not  obvious  in  the 
process  whereby  the  wealth  was  accumulated.  The  point  of 
this  is  not  that  one  should  blame  oneself  or  be  blamed  by 
others  for  doing  business  in  the  only  ways  that  are  possible  at 
the  present  time.  Accumulation  of  property  does  not  neces- 
sarily imply  accumulation  of  individual  sinfulness,  for  the  fault 


THE  AIMS  63 

IS  a  conjoint  one.  In  every  business  that  is  conducted  under 
our  present  system  of  competition  in  profit  taking,  the  owner 
has  associated  with  him  all  the  social  forces  that  make  and 
administer  our  laws,  all  those  that  create  rigid  business  cus- 
toms, yes,  earlier  generations  that  have  bequeathed  to  us  their 
own  ideas  and  ways.  What  is  to  be  expected  of  the  Christian 
business  man  is  that  he  will  not  only  be  generous  as  generosity 
is  measured  under  our  capitalistic  presuppositions,  but  that  he 
will  also  be  just  by  doing  everything  within  his  power  to  curb 
and  ultimately  make  impossible  the  exploitation  of  human 
life  for  the  sake  of  profits.  The  real  function  of  every  business 
must  be  held  to  be,  not  the  greatest  possible  concentration  in 
the  control  of  goods,  which  are  conditions  of  welfare,  but  the 
greatest  possible  increase  and  the  widest  possible  distribution  of 
welfare  itself.  To  hold  business  to  this  function  is  one  of  the 
fundamental  phases  of  any  real  Christianization  of  the  world. 
In  the  daylight  of  a  purpose  like  this,  what  a  shadowy  thing  is 
the  private  goodness  upon  which  the  attention  of  our  pupils 
has  been  traditionally  fixed  I 


r 


/ 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FIRST   ESSENTIALS   OF   AN   EDUCATIONAL 

PLAN 

We  have  seen  that  the  social  ideahsm  of  Christianity  pre- 
scribes for  reHgious  education  as  an  ultimate  goal  the  trans- 
formation of  a  social  order  that  is  largely  unjust  into  one  that 
shall  be  wholly  just,  and  that,  consequently,  religious  educa- 
tion must  enter  directly,  not  merely  by  distant  implication, 
into  the  social  struggles  of  the  present.  Let  us  now  see  how  this 
large  purpose  can  become  a  guiding  principle  for  determining 
the  main  essentials  of  an  educational  plan.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  argue  again  that  to  socialize  the  group  we  must 
individualize  the  pupils,  that  is,  lead  each  one  to  adopt  justice 
as  his  very  own  desire,  purpose,  and  practice.  This  involves 
four  aspects  of  religious  growth,  and  provision  therefor. 

I.  Provision  for  growth  in  knowledge  of  the  Christian 
ideal,  and  of  the  means  and  methods  whereby  it  is  gradually 
securing  control  of  social  forces.  The  function  of  the  curric- 
ulum maker  is  to  select  and  systematize  such  knowledge; 
the  function  of  the  text-book  maker  is  to  prepare  it  in  some 
detail  with  reference  to  the  established  principles  of  the  learn- 
ing process;  the  function  of  the  teacher  is  to  effect  the  assimila- 
tion of  this  material  by  particular  pupils  with  their  individual 
capacities  and  needs.     The  whole  may  be  called  instruction. 

(1)  The  aim  of  instruction  is  not  to  impose  truth  but  to  pro- 
mote growth.  The  whole  teaching  enterprise  is  to  be  brought 
under  the  notion  of  growth — of  vital,  not  mechanical  proc- 
esses. Hence  the  term  "instruction"  must  be  emptied  of  its 
traditional  implication  of  telling  pupils  what  to  believe.  To 
impose  our  beliefs  upon  a  child,  even  though  the  beliefs  be 

64 


THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS  65 

utterly  true,  is  not  to  promote  the  growth  of  a  free  personality — 
it  may  even  be  an  invasion  of  personality;  it  may  subject  one 
individual  to  another  instead  of  emancipating  each  and  every 
one  into  full  membership  in  a  self-governing  society,  the  de- 
mocracy of  God. 

To  argue  that  we  already  possess  the  truth,  since  it  has  been 
revealed,  and  that  therefore  we  ought  to  impose  beliefs  upon 
children,  betrays  an  interesting  confusion.  The  elements 
with  which  the  argument  deals  are  three:  The  truth,  the  pupil, 
and  the  teacher  who  is  supposed  to  bring  these  two  together. 
What,  now,  if  the  teacher  is  unable  to  eliminate  himself  from  the 
finished  product?  What  if  the  teacher  comes  between  the 
pupil's  mind  and  the  truth,  and  stays  there?  This,  in  fact, 
does  happen  when  the  attempt  to  impose  beliefs  is  most  success- 
ful. WTien  pupils  are  tractable,  what  is  the  authority  to  which 
they  submit — what  is  it,  that  is,  from  their  own  point  of  view  ? 
It  is  the  Sunday-school  teacher,  the  pastor,  the  text-book,  or 
tradition  in  the  form  of  hearsay.  Even  if  we  train  the  pupil 
to  say  sincerely  that  it  is  the  Pope,  the  church,  or  the  Bible  to 
which  he  submits,  this  say-so  of  his  is  our  own  handiwork; 
we  have  interposed  ourselves  between  the  pupil  and  reality, 
and  we  have  no  guarantee  that  the  truth  becomes  his  own 
possession. 

The  whole  notion  of  transferring  ready-made  thoughts  to  the 
mind  of  another  is  psychologically  fallacious.  When  a  pupil 
trustingly  repeats  our  formulae  after  us,  and  even  when  he 
sincerely  believes  that  he  grasps  and  holds  as  his  own  the  truth 
that  the  formulae  represent,  what  really  happens  is  that  he  is 
moved  by  social  forces  to  conform  to  the  group  that  surrounds 
him  and  to  separate  himself  by  pseudoknowledge  from  other 
men.  What  we  have  here  is  neither  knowledge  nor  belief  in 
any  vital  sense,  but  partisanship.  This  kind  of  instruction  in 
childhood  produces  not  only  in  Catholicism  but  also  in  Prot- 
estantism an  easily  recognized  adult  type,  the  man  who  settles 
historical  and  scientific  questions  without  historical  or  scientific 
study,  and  by  the  results  judges  whether  his  neighbors  are  sheep 
or  goats. 


66  THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS 

(2)  What  is  gradation  of  material  f  The  essence  of  instruc- 
tion is  promotion  of  genuine  thinking.  Consequently  the  con- 
tent of  instruction  should  change  with  the  pupil's  growing 
capacity  for  thought.  Here  is  the  foundation  for  gradation 
of  material  as  an  unescapable  necessity  of  good  teaching. 
The  principle  goes  deeper  than  is  realized  even  by  many  who 
insist  upon  it.  From  the  history  of  religious  instruction  a 
ladder  like  the  following  might  be  constructed:  First,  a  fixed 
and  formulated  body  of  doctrine  or  of  ritualistic  forms  is 
drilled  into  the  pupil's  memory.  Second,  in  order  to  secure 
some  adaptation  to  the  pupil,  the  language  is  simplified,  or  the 
formula  is  abbreviated.  Third,  still  further  to  help  the  pupil 
to  understand  this  material,  stories,  pictures,  and  analogies  are 
introduced  from  outside.  Fourth,  when  the  fallacy  of  the 
attempt  to  transfer  a  whole  system  of  doctrine  to  child  minds 
becomes  unbearably  clear,  the  next  move  is  to  select  from  this 
system,  or  from  the  Scripture,  or  from  ecclesiastical  history, 
traditions,  and  usages,  the  parts  that  seem  likely  to  have  the 
greatest  inherent  interest  for  children  of  each  grade,  so  that  a 
part  of  the  system  may  be  transferred  at  one  age,  a  part 
at  another,  and  in  due  time  the  whole.  Fifth,  when  the  re- 
ligious growth  of  the  pupil  as  distinguished  from  the  transfer 
of  a  system  comes  to  be  accepted  as  the  proper  aim  of  in- 
struction, a  curriculum  is  constructed  by  picking  out  from 
the  same  presupposed  body  of  doctrine,  history,  sacred  story, 
and  church  usages  the  parts  best  adapted  to  help  pupils  live 
religiously  on  their  own  level  at  the  different  periods  of  growth. 

Many  teachers  have  believed  that  here  at  last  the  principle 
of  gradation  is  completely  in  control.  But  is  not  the  ancient 
fallacy  still  here  in  the  limitation  of  the  sources  when  the  ma- 
terial of  instruction  is  drawn?  When  we  have  made  clear 
to  ourselves  what  sort  of  world  the  Father  and  we  as  his  chil- 
dren desire,  must  not  our  next  concern  be  that  the  young 
also  should  desire  it  ?  What  boots  it  if  they  know  all  Scripture, 
all  doctrine,  all  church  history,  and  church  usages,  if  they  have 
not  both  the  forward  look  and  the  sort  of  desire  that  can  re- 
construct a  world?    What  the  pupil  needs  to  adjust  himself 


THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS  67 

to  is  not  anything  as  it  has  been,  but  something  as  it  ought  to 
be.  Let  the  curriculum  be  drawn  from  any  sort  of  material —  \ 
Scripture,  history,  church  life  and  enterprise,  the  world  of  the 
pupil's  present  experience  and  of  his  imagination — anything 
that  will  most  surely  and  rapidly  make  him  share  in  the  Father's 
desire  and  labor  for  society.  At  each  point  in  the  child's  grow- 
ing experience,  the  essential  question  is :  What  in  all  the  world  is 
most  likely,  if  we  turn  his  attention  to  it,  to  increase  his  active, 
intelligent  devotion  to  the  Christian  purpose? 

(3)  The  sources  of  material  for  Christian  instruction.  Two 
sorts  of  knowledge  are  central  in  Christian  instruction,  knowl- 
edge of  what  the  Christian  purpose  is,  and  of  means  and  me.thods^ 
for  making  it  prevail.  The  Scriptures  are  to  be  used  as  a  means 
to  this  end,  not  as  an  end  in  themselves,  and  we  must  not  as- 
sume in  advance  that  they  contain  everything  that  is  needful 
for  this  vital  sort  of  graded  instruction.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  do  not.  We  might  guess  as  much  from  the  simple  consider- 
ation that  nearly  all  parts  of  the  Bible  were  written  with  adults 
and  their  problems  in  mind.  But  the  limitation  goes  deeper 
than  this.  Every  biblical  writing  reflects,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  the  social  presuppositions  of  its  own  age,  presupposi- 
tions that  have  to  be  examined,  criticised,  and  revised.  Ele- 
ments of  our  own  social  problems  we  do  find  there,  indeed,  and 
they  are  highly  instructive,  as  the  land  problem,  for  example. 
But  if  we  would  master  the  fresh  perplexities  that  have  come 
with  the  advent  of  popular  government  and  machine  manu- 
facture, and  if  we  would  press  toward  a  democracy  of  God,  we 
must  turn  the  attention  of  pupils  to  many  matters  that  are  this 
side  of  the  biblical  horizon. 

The  notion  that  the  Bible  contains  everything  that  is  needed 
in  Christian  instruction  is  sometimes  supported  by  the  asser- 
tion that  if  we  loved  our  neighbors  as  the  Bible  tells  us  to  do, 
our  whole  social  problem  would  be  solved.  This  statement  is 
either  a  paralytic  truism  or  else  it  is  false.  If  it  means  that 
love,  intelligently  exercised  by  all  persons  concerned,  would 
find  a  way  to  cure  the  ills  in  question,  it  is  a  truism,  and  it 
is  almost  as  ineffective  as  the  insight  that  if  we  could  keep  all 


68  THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS 

the  cells  of  everybody's  lungs  functioning  properly  we  could 
rid  the  world  of  pulmonary  tuberculosis.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  it  means  that  our  social  ills  arise  altogether  from  the  fact  that 
men  who  have  faced  the  issue  of  justice  take  the  side  of  injus- 
tice, it  is  false.  One  of  the  fundamental  reasons  why  we  do 
not  love  one  another  more  generally  and  more  intelligently  is 
that  the  conditions  under  wliich  children  grow  up  constitute  a 
training  in  selfishness  and  in  partisanship.  We  are  prevented 
from  seeing  the  real  issues,  and  from  getting  sufficiently  ac- 
quainted with  our  neighbors  to  know  how  capable  they  and  we 
^are  of  disinterested  neighborliness. 

/  What  we  need  is  not  merely  to  be  advised  to  love  men  more 
/  regardless  of  conditions,  but  also  to  see  clearly  that  we  are  sup- 
I  porting  social  customs  and  even  laws  that  actually  reward  self- 
\  ishness  with  power  and  honor.  We  who  would  like  to  love  our 
'^neighbors  as  ourselves  are  maintaining  systems  of  social  con- 
trol that  actually  prevent  us  from  doing  it.  What  ails  us  is  not 
merely  that  we  have  grown  up  in  ignorance  of  the  Scriptures, 
nor  that  our  hearts  are  unresponsive  to  the  call  of  Jesus.  How 
many  men  and  women  who  are  well  versed  in  the  Scriptures, 
and  whose  loyalty  to  the  Master  is  unquestioned,  nevertheless 
do  not  see  that  Scriptural  principles,  and  particularly  the  mind 
of  the  Master,  are  vitally  concerned  in  the  present  struggle  for 
social  justice.  A  glowing  inner  life  of  good  will  and  tender- 
ness and  aspiration,  a  life  that  feeds  daily  upon  the  manna  of 
religious  history,  is  of  itself  no  guarantee  of  the  kind  of  in- 
telligence that  is  necessary  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  world. 
To  produce  such  intelligence.  Christian  instruction  must  turn 
the  attention  of  pupils  directly  upon  economic,  political,  and 
any  other  social  conditions  that  contradict  the  spirit  of  brother- 
hood, upon  successful  experiments  in  social  living,  and  upon 
outreaching  ideals  and  reforms. 

This  conception  of  Christian  instruction  refuses  to  separate 
knowledge  and  belief  from  the  enterprise  of  living.  It  assumes 
that  intelligence  and  active  desire  should  be  awakened  as  a  single 
experience.  Yet  this  is  far  from  implying  any  narrow-gauge 
practicality  or  spiritual  fussiness.    A  social  conception  of  life 


<^n 


THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS  69 

has  room,  as  perhaps  no  other  has,  for  high  valuation  of  art, 
nature,  Hterature,  philosophy,  and  historical  forms  of  doctrine. 
The  worth  of  them  all  grows  from  being  shared,  and  because 
the  generations  are  knit  together.  Everything  that  can  be 
democratically  enjoyed  without  consequences  that  are  undemo- 
cratic belongs  within  the  Christian  conception  of  the  life  that 
is  appropriate  to  sons  of  the  Highest.  "All  things  are  yours." 
^  n.  Practice  in  using  the  tools  of  the  Christian  enterprise. 
Just  as  a  child's  social  thinking  is  influenced  from  infancy  by 
his  contacts  with  society,  so  his  actual  practices  with  respect 
to  others  tend  from  the  beginning  to  become  fixed  as  a  per- 
manent mode  of  life.  Because  this  practice  is  constant,  there 
is  no  neutral  period  during  which  specific  training  in  social 
enterprises  must  wait.  Planned  or  unplanned  training  goes 
on  anyhow;  the  hand  is  being  shaped  to  some  sort  of  social 
tools.  Habits  formed  now  go  deep  in  respect  both  to  what 
they  include  and  to  what  they  exclude.  For  it  is  by  doing  some- 
thing in  a  given  situation  that  particular  elements  of  it  come  to 
our  attention.  Thus  it  is  that  we  form  habits  of  noticing  or 
of  not  noticing  the  feelings  and  interests  of  others.  A  habit 
of  not  noticing  is  also  a  habit  of  not  sympathizing.  Many  an 
amiable  man  is  callous  toward  one  or  another  class  of  his  fel- 
lows, and  impermeable  to  important  humanitarian  appeals, 
because  in  his  plastic  years  he  did  not  acquire  the  technic  of 
seeing  and  feeling  and  acting  in  such  matters. 

Nothing  in  Christian  education  can  be  more  fundamental, 
therefore,  than  participation  of  pupils  with  one  another  and  with 
their  elders  in  Christian  enterprises,  that  is,  enterprises  that 
aim  at  social  welfare,  social  justice,  and  a  world  society.  Re- 
serving for  succeeding  chapters  various  problems  of  metho( 
and  of  organization  that  are  related  to  this  training  in  the 
use  of  social  tools,  let  us  now  guard  against  possible  miscon- 
ceptions of  its  place  in  a  total  view  of  educational  ends.  Cau- 
tion is  particularly  necessary  lest  "tools''  and  "practice"  be 
thought  of  as  something  apart  from  normal  social  living,  as 
mere  preparation  for  such  living.  On  the  contrary,  the  point 
is  that  children  obtain  the  best  social  training  by  being  a  real 


70  THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS 

part  of  the  working  force  of  the  world.  They  mature  their 
control  of  tools  not  by  merely  handling  them  or  by  brandish- 
ing them  in  the  air,  but  by  doing  some  part  of  the  world's  work. 
We  as  educators  are  not  to  place  the  child  in  any  invented 
scheme  of  spiritual  gymnastics — things  done  wholly  for  the 
sake  of  the  future — but  rather,  recognizing  the  vast  variety 
and  scope  of  social  need,  we  are  to  admit  even  little  children 
to  partnership  with  us  in  the  enterprise  of  meeting  it.  This 
is  the  way  for  them  to  acquire  not  only  the  mechanics  of  social 
work,  but  also  the  intelligence  and  the  trained  and  sympa- 
thetic perceptions  of  a  mature  Christian.  What  a  practical 
absurdity  it  is  that  so  many  church  members  should  make 
their  first  real  acquaintance  with  philanthropies,  social  reforms, 
and  missions,  in  mature  life,  and  what  wonder  is  it  that  inti- 
mate acquaintance  under  these  conditions  is  so  rare  ? 

m.  Preparation  for  a  particular  place  in  society,  first 
in  the  family,  and  second  in  an  occupation.  The  inclusion 
of  domestic  and  vocational  training  within  religious  education 
is  necessitated  by  the  fact,  already  pointed  out,  that  the  love 
that  is  justice  demands  the  whole  of  a  man's  social  allegiance. 
To  help,  in  his  own  sphere,  to  rebuild  society  is  the  life-work  of 
every  Christian.  It  is  to  be  foreseen,  studied,  planned  for  in 
the  true  professional  spirit,  and  with  the  same  regard  for  tech- 
nical proficiency  that  one  looks  for  in  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  or 
a  mining  engineer. 

This  is  the  spirit  that  should  control  marriage,  family  life, 
and  the  procreation  and  rearing  of  children.  Domestic  life 
is  to  be  governed  and  tested,  not  by  its  contribution  to  the 
comfort  of  the  individual  members  as  such,  but  by  its  actualiza- 
tion of  the  democracy  of  God  within  itself,  and  then  by  its 
outgoing  influence  upon  the  wider  society.  Marriage  is  to  be 
specifically  prepared  for  as  a  calling  of  God,  and  the  domestic 
habits  of  both  husband  and  wife  are  to  be  lifted  above  mere 
conventionality,  inclination,  and  happen-so  into  the  sphere  of 
defined  social  service  and  efiiciency.  The  household  labor  of 
women,  and  the  bearing  and  care  of  children,  are  to  be  treated  as 
a  professional,  skilled  occupation — a  sphere  for  ambition,  study. 


THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS  71 

and  social  recognition.  That  women  who  devote  them- 
selves to  these  duties  have  at  present  so  scanty  recognition  as 
producers,  being  regarded  as  dependents  upon  their  husbands, 
or  as  being  supported  by  the  industry  of  another,  is  a  partial 
indication  of  the  reconstructive  work  that  has  to  be  done  by 
education. 

It  is  no  new  thing  to  think  of  all  legitimate  occupations  as 
so  many  spheres  for  the  service  of  God.  But  one  does  not  serve 
God  in  one's  occupation  any  further  than  one  serves  human 
society.  God  does  not  require  to  be  fed  and  clothed;  the  only 
thing  that  we  can  do  for  him  that  he  cannot  do  for  himself  is 
to  be  brothers  one  to  another.  Every  occupation  is  to  be 
transformed  into  a  specialized  method  of  an  effective  brother- 
hood, and  to  this  end  a  proper  part  of  every  occupation  is  to 
help  in  improving  the  social  standards,  including  the  laws,  that 
apply  to  it.  Our  religion  dissents  profoundly  from  the  world's 
generally  accepted  standards.  If  we  were  half  awake  to  the 
radical  character  of  this  dissent,  we  should  not  accept  the  cur- 
rent assumption  that  vocational  studies  concern  simply  the 
methods  of  getting  certain  things  done;  instead,  we  should  insist 
that  analysis  of  the  human  relations  involved  in  any  occupa- 
tion is  the  fundamental  vocational  study.  Until  such  analysis 
is  included  in  our  systems  of  general  and  vocational  education, 
the  churches  should  themselves  provide  it  for  the  children  and 
young  people  who  are  committed  to  their  care.  In  and  thi^ough 
such  analysis  we  can  hope  to  develop  a  Christian  vocational 
purpose,  the  purpose  to  use  one's  particular  position  in  the  social 
and  economic  complex  as  a  fulcrum  for  moving  this  complex 
itself  toward  the  level  of  brotherhood. 

IV.  Growth  in  social  motives.  Our  discussion  of  knowl- 
edge, practice,  and  vocational  preparation  has  already  included 
the  notion  that  all  along  the  line  of  advance  there  should  be  a 
growing  socialization  of  the  inner  life  of  desire.  Growth  in 
motives  is  now  set  down  as  a  fourth  phase  of  growth,  not  be- 
cause it  is  separate  or  separable  from  these  three,  but  because 
it  requires  special  attention.  It  requires  attention  in  the  first 
place  because  existing  reh'gious  education  does  to  a  consider- 


72  THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS 

/^able  extent  assume  a  separation  between  motive  on  the  one 

\     hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  knowledge  and  practical  activities. 
]    What  is  the  ordinary  meaning  of  loving  God,  or  of  accepting 
/    Christ,  or  of  entire  consecration?     Are  they  not  presented  as 
^    if  they  could  take  place  in  a  social  vacuum,  and  as  if  the  char- 
acter of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  oneself  required  no  reference  to 
concrete  brotherhood  ?     Is  it  not  true  that  children  and  young 

j     people  are  being  taught  to  "get  right  with  God"  first,  and  be 

I     social-minded  afterward? 

^    The  result  of  such  efforts  to  produce  an  mner  life,  or  Chris- 
tian motive,  as  something  per  se  we  behold  in  a  multitude  of 
church  members  who  mean  well  but  do  not  know  what  "  well " 
means;   who  intend  to  be  loyal  to  Christ  but  do  not  realize  to 
what  he  is  loyal;  who  sincerely  desire  the  triumph  of  right  but 
leave  social  technic  to  those  who  have  individualistic  interests 
to  serve  by  it.     We  shall  overcome  these  things,  which  are  a 
reproach  to  us,  only  when,  accepting  in  simple  literalness  our 
ancient  doctrine  that  the  supreme  revelation  of  God  is  one  with 
the  supreme  revelation  of  man,  we  teach  the  young  that  to 
I  know  God  we  must  be  socially  intelligent,  that  to  make  his  will 
I  our  own  is  a  matter  of  social  practice,  and  that  entire  consecra- 
'  tion  is  a  strictly  vocational  concept. 

Another  reason  why  motives  require  specific  attention  is 
that  growth  in  motives  is  a  relatively  neglected  notion.  We 
must  make  clear  both  that  change  is  normal  and  in  what  a 
normal  change  consists.  Here  again  we  are  dealing  with  the 
forward,  not  the  backward,  look.  What  distinguishes  a  motive 
from  a  merely  instinctive  impulse  is  just  looking  ahead.  A 
motive  is  anything  in  a  contemplated,  not  yet  actualized,  situa- 
tion that  renders  it  attractive  and  thus  stimulates  us  to  make  it 
actual.  The  good  heart  is  nothing  esoteric,  nothing  merely 
inner;  it  can  always  be  defined  objectively  in  terms  of  that 
upon  which  we  are  actually  expending  our  energy  and  our 
resources.  Growth  in  Christian  motives  means,  therefore, 
changes  in  the  pupil's  outlook  toward  future  social  good.  It 
means  finer  discrimination  between  relative  values,  and  be- 
tween ends  and  means,  and  corresponding  change  in  fineness 


THE  FIRST  ESSENTIALS  73 

and  breadth  of  appreciation,  which  is  the  beginning  of  fine 
and  broad  social  conduct.^ 

This  is  the  inner  life  that  is  to  be  cultivated;  this  is  "growth 
in  the  grace  and  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ."  To  this  end  is  Christian  self -discipline.  To  this 
end  also  is  culture  of  the  devotional  lif^.  whether  in  public 
worship  or  in  private  meditation  and  prayer.  That  we  may 
be  conformed  to  the  social  will  of  God,  and  enjoy  being  con- 
formed to  it — this  is  the  purpose  and  meaning  of  devotional 
exercises  of  all  sorts.  This  does  not  mean  substituting  human 
society  for  fellowship  with  God,  but  rather  finding  God  where  he 
himself  is  pleased  to  dwell.  Where  shall  the  child  find  the 
Father?  Wherever  the  child's  desire  goes  out  after  the  things 
that  the  Father  loves,  that  is,  the  persons  who  are  the  supreme 
objects  of  divine  solicitude.  There  can  be  no  purely  private 
relation  to  God,  for  our  very  selfhood  is  conjunct.  We  are  made 
selves  by  a  give-and-take  with  others — and  we  are  made  in  his 
image. 

1  This  brief  statement  must  suffice  imtil  we  reach  Chapter  XIV. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  EDUCATIVE  PROCESS  IS  RELIGIOUS 
EXPERIENCE 

Why  do  some  persons  deny  that  religion  can  be  taught? 

In  some  types  of  Protestantism  the  following  remarkable 
anomaly  is  to  be  found:  .^Insistence  upon  religious  teaching  for 
the  young,  but  denial  that  religion  can  be  taught.  The  argu- 
ment for  religious  teaching  runs  to  the  effect  that  the  impres- 
sionable, plastic  years  of  childhood  and  youth  are  of  crucial 
importance  for  adult  character.  The  argument  against  the 
possibility  of  teaching  religion  bases  itself  upon  the  assertion 
that  real  religion,  at  least  in  the  fully  Christian  sense,  is  an 
inner,  intimately  personal,  and  therefore  incommunicable 
experience.  The  attempt  to  teach  religion  simmers  down, 
according  to  this  view,  to  teaching  about  religion. 

That  the  two  elements  of  this  view  have  not  been  recon- 
ciled in  practice  will  appear  from  the  next  section.  How,  in- 
deed, can  one  produce  an  educational  system  when  in  the  same 
breath  one  asserts  and  yet  denies  the  efficacy  of  teaching? 
Let  us  ask,  then,  how  any  Christian  thought  could  manoeuvre 
itself  into  this  corner.     The  answer  is  twofold: 

(1)  Because  they  endeavor  to  hold  at  the  same  time  to  a  vital  or 
experiential  view  of  the  Christian  life,  and  a  dogmatic-intellectual- 
istic  view  of  the  Christian  revelation.  If  the  Christian  revela- 
tion consists  in  certain  dogmas,  then  the  Christian  life  should 
consist  in  the  intellectual  act  of  learning  and  holding  the  dog- 
mas. In  this  case  Christian  education  would  be  identical  with 
intellectualistic  instruction.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  the 
Christian  revelation  is  "  made  flesh,"  if  it  is  a  concrete  life  that 
inspires  and  renews  our  life,  then  to  be  a  Christian  would  be 

74 


THE  PROCESS  75 

something  far  more  vital,  and  Christian  education,  instead  of 
being  instruction  about  dogmas,  would  be  an  initiation  into 
actual  living  upon  the  plane  of  the  Christian  purpose. 

But  what  will  be  one's  view  of  Christian  education  if  one 
holds  at  the  same  time  to  an  intellectualistic  view  of  revelation 
and  an  experiential  view  of  the  Christian  life?  What  has 
actually  happened  in  this  case  is  this:  Education  has  been 
viewed  as  essentially  a  means  of  transmitting  dogmas;  but, 
since  even  the  devils  can  believe  and  still  be  devils  (as  we  are 
often  assured),  it  has  been  insistently  claimed  that  religion 
cannot  be  taught.  And  indeed  vital  religion  does  not  and  can- 
not get  into  education  through  dogmatic-intellectualistic  as- 
sumptions as  to  God's  approach  to  man.  The  language  that 
is  attributed  to  God  is  not  that  which  the  child's  heart  speaks; 
the  problems  that  are  raised  are  those  of  the  theologian,  not 
of  the  child,  and,  besides,  the  whole  is  finished,  fixed,  rigid,  while 
the  child  is  all  movement,  all  becoming. 

Yet  many  who  hold  to  a  dogmatic  view  of  revelation  insist 
upon  an  experiential  or  vital  view  of  the  Christian  life.  They 
cannot  be  blind,  of  course,  to  the  significance  of  childhood 
plasticity  for  such  a  life.  But,  having  committed  themselves 
to  a  dogmatic  type  of  religious  education,  they  deny  that  re- 
ligion can  be  taught,  and  then  they  flounder  in  search  of  some 
method  for  religiously  influencing  children.  All  the  inconsis- 
tency and  all  the  floundering  could  be  avoided  by  a  whole- 
hearted acceptance  of  the  idea  that  God's  revelation  of  himself 
is  always  in  the  form  of  flesh;  that  it  is  in  Jesus,  and  in  every 
human  will  that  follows  him.  One  could  then  look  upon  a 
child's  gradual  achieving  of  the  full  Christian  purpose  as  itself 
a  growing  communion  with  God,  a  gradual  self-impartation  of 
God  to  his  belcyved  child.  The  educational  process  would  then 
fuse  with  Christian  experience. 

(2)  A  second  reason  for  this  educational  anomaly  is  that 
this  type  of  thought,  though  it  holds  that  religious  living  includes 
both  relations  to  God  and  relations  to  men,  does  not  fuse  the  two  as 
Jesus  did.  If  we  can  hold  that  the  love  that  is  toward  God 
and  the  love  that  is  toward  men  are  not  two,  but  one,  and  that 


76  THE  PROCESS 

this  one  is  communion  with  the  Father,  then  the  social  unfolding 
of  a  child  can  be  luminous  with  divine  meaning.  There  is 
then  no  antithesis  between  the  socializing  of  the  will  and 
Christian  experience.  God  speaks  to  the  child,  and  the  child 
to  God  in  a  language  that  both  understand.  But  if  we  hold 
that  one's  primary  relation  to  God  is  purely  private,  that  it  has 
to  do  with  subjective  mysteries,  and  that  only  through  a  pre- 
liminary grasp  of  these  mysteries  is  one  prepared  for  truly 
Christian  social  relations,  then  indeed  religion  cannot  be  taught. 

Consequences  of  the  doctrine  that  "religion  is  caught, 
not  taught."  The  attempt  to  teach  religion  at  the  same 
time  that  the  possibility  of  teaching  it  is  denied  leads  quite 
naturally  to  dualism  in  practice. 

(1)  Unsteadiness  of  aim  prevails,  and  consequent  failure  to 
set  up  defi7iite  standards.  If  we  ask  what  the  purpose  of  a 
Sunday  school  is,  we  are  told  that  the  purpose  is  to  teach 
the  Bible.  But  if  we  point  out  that  those  who  avow  this  as 
their  purpose  do  not  teach  the  Bible  with  any  thoroughness  at 
all,  the  ground  is  shifted.  We  are  now  told  that  the  purpose 
is  to  mould  the  character  of  the  pupil  by  placing  him  directly 
under  Christian  influences  for  an  hour  and  a  half  every  Sun- 
day. If  we  go  on  to  ask  why  these  influences  have  not  been 
systematized,  and  why  recognizable  standards  and  tests  of 
their  efficiency  have  not  been  set  up,  we  are  reminded  that 
religion  is  caught,  not  taught ! 

The  \drtue  of  this  epigram  is  missed  by  some  who  are  fond  of 
using  it.  It  is,  or  should  be,  a  drive  at  intellectualism,  or  at 
the  identification  of  instruction  with  education.  When  it  is 
used  to  discredit  system,  and  standards,  and  tests,  in  the 
Christward  guidance  of  the  child's  social  experience,  it  becomes 
an  arrow  shot  at  the  goose  that  lays  the  golden  eggs.  It  is 
true  that  many  a  teacher  untrained  in  methods,  and  making 
many  a  blunder  in  methods,  has  nevertheless  had  a  profoundly 
educative  influence  upon  his  pupils.  Shall  we  not  assume  that 
his  success  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  really  conformed,  though 
without  realizing  it,  to  fundamental  laws  of  religious  growth? 
Surely  the  life  of  the  spirit  is  a  realm  of  order,  not  a  chaos  of 


THE  PROCESS  77 

forces.  Why,  then,  do  we  not  analyze  the  ways  of  teachers  who 
succeed,  whether  with  or  without  training,  to  the  end  that  we 
may  systematize  the  principles  of  their  success,  and  thus  show 
others  how  to  succeed  ?  In  other  words,  the  laws  that  underlie 
effective  religious  education  are  identical  with  the  laws  of  spirit- 
ual growth.  Therefore  a  wabbly  scheme  of  religious  education 
justifies  a  query  as  to  the  views  of  religion  that  underlie  it. 

(2)  Interruptions  of  the  educative  process  are  tolerated,  and  even 
regarded  as  nonnal.  Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to 
analyze  the  experience  of  a  pupil  minute  by  minute  through  one 
session  of  an  ordinary  Sunday  school  can  know  for  himself  how 
constantly  non-educative  procedures  mix  with  education. 
The  o^eninp^  exercises  are  a  jumble  of  worship,  business,  and 
drill.  'If  we  ask  why  these  exercises  should  be  held  at  all, 
we  may  be  told  that  the  children  should  learn  to  worship. 
But  if  we  examine  the  program  and  method,  we  find  only  a 
feeble  grasp,  or  none  at  all,  of  the  idea  of  education  in  and 
through  worship.  The  aii^s  of  the  worship  are  indefinite,  and 
both  content  and  method  are  unsystematized,  unadapted,  and 
untested.  Besides,  the  setting  of  worship — the  way  it  is  el- 
bowed by  business,  speechmaking  (sometimes  from  visitors 
who  can  only  guess  what  the  situation  demands),  and  crude 
disciplinary  measures  (banging  of  bells,  calls  for  order,  shouting 
above  the  din,  scolding) — this  setting  is  not  strongly  suggestive 
of  a  growing  sense  of  the  presence  of  God.  And  this  sort  of 
thing  in  the  opening  and  the  closing  exercises  occupies  the 
major  part  of  the  meagre  time  at  the  disposal  of  the  school. 
The  lesson  period,  during  which  educative  procedures  are  sup- 
posed to  be  entirely  in  control,  is  pared  down  to  a  minimum. 
Not  only  so;  even  this  minimum  is  reduced  through  interrup- 
tions by  secretaries,  through  encroachments  of  prolonged  open- 
ing exercises,  and  through  the  demands  of  anniversaries  and 
"special  occasions. '* 

Nor  do  interruptions  of  educational  procedures  end  even 
here.  Irruptions  of  child  evangelism  occur  in  various  forms, 
from  exhortations  by  preachers  or  teachers,  through  high- 
pressure  "decision  days"  that  are  not  integrated  into  the  gen- 


78  THE  PROCESS 

eral  educational  work  of  the  school,  to  mass-meetings  of  chil- 
dren conducted  by  itinerant  evangeHsts  over  whom  the  educa- 
tional authorities  of  the  school  have  no  control.  All  this  gives 
one  an  impression  that  "getting  religion"  is  independent  of 
religious  education,  and  it  leads  one  to  wonder  what,  then, 
religious  education  is  supposed  to  be  and  to  do. 

The  roots  of  these  incongruities  are  doubtless  manifold. 
We  must  of  course  give  religious  education  time  to  grow  up, 
and  we  must  not  make  its  immaturity  an  occasion  for  bela- 
boring the  faithful  men  and  women,  mostly  laymen  without 
opportunity  for  technical  training,  who  are  giving  the  best 
that  they  have  to  the  children.  All  honor  to  the  workers  in 
our  Sunday  schools  !  Here  is  massed  together  such  an  amount 
of  Christian  consecration,  such  an  amount  of  unrequited 
labor  for  others,  as  was  never  before  seen  in  the  history  of  our 
religion.  Our  present  question  concerns  the  effective  organiza- 
tion of  this  enormous  energy.  We  need  to  know  whether  it  is 
being  scattered,  or  misdirected,  or  thwarted  by  inconsistency 
of  plan  and  method.  If  so,  we  must  know  why.  The  conclu- 
sion that  we  have  reached  is  that  there  is  vast  leakage  of  energy, 
enormous  waste  of  consecrated  labor,  because  so  many  persons, 
believing  that  "religion  is  caught,  not  taught,"  counteract 
their  own  efforts  to  teach  religion. 

(3)  A  third  consequence  of  the  doctrine  that  "  religion  is  caught, 
not  taught"  is  unfairness  to  teachers.  If  religion  is  to  be  spread 
among  the  young  solely  by  a  process  of  infection,  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  the  one  thing  needful  is  to  bring  the  pupil  within 
the  area  of  a  teacher's  personal  influence.  That  a  profound 
educational  conception  lies  hidden  in  the  notion  of  spiritual 
life  as  communicated  from  person  to  person  by  fellowship  will 
appear  from  our  next  section.  But  dim  vision  of  a  great  truth 
may  give  it  the  effect  of  a  half-truth,  and  half-truths  have  re- 
markable power  to  hurt  as  well  as  to  heal.  The  current  em- 
phasis upon  the  teacher's  personality  is  a  case  in  point.  How 
often  do  we  hear  that  the  success  of  a  given  teacher  is  due  to  a 
"natural  gift  for  teaching,"  or  to  an  attractive  personality, 
or  to  intense  consecration.     If  we  should  take  this  at  its  face 


THE  PROCESS  79 

value,  what  ugly  implications  it  would  carry  with  respect  to 
the  rank  and  file  of  earnest  teachers  who  do  not  have  success  of 
the  shining  sort  that  brings  out  such  remarks.  Because  certain 
persons  have  stumbled  upon  methods  that  succeed,  we  praise 
their  personalities;  because  the  stumbling  of  others  has  not 
turned  out  quite  as  happily,  we  put  them  in  an  inferior  class. 
Yet  within  this  class  we  shall  find,  If  we  look  for  it,  the  capacity 
to  succeed  if  only  the  requirements  of  the  work  in  hand  can  be 
pointed  out  clearly.  Here  are  Christian  character,  zeal,  faith- 
fulness, intelligence;  what  right  have  we  to  discount  them? 
Granted  the  presence  of  these  qualities,  with  no  positively 
counteracting  twist,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  say:  "We  will 
show  you  how  to  succeed,  and  we  will  provide  the  remaining 
conditions  of  success." 

(4)  A  fourth  consequence  is  inertia  in  the  matter  of  teacher- 
training.  There  are  several  reasons  why  the  training  of  Sunday- 
school  teachers  has  been  so  halting  an  affair.  We  shall  have 
occasion  after  a  time  to  analyze  the  complications  that  are 
involved.  But,  running  through  the  whole,  at  least  in  certain 
quarters,  is  the  silent,  counteracting,  anaesthetizing  vapor  of 
an  educational  scepticism  that  supposes  itself  to  be  religious 
faith.  If  such  scepticism  were  not  abroad,  and  deep  seated, 
how  could  so  many  pastors  give  religious  education  only  a 
secondary  place,  or  worse,  in  their  plans  for  pastoral  adminis- 
tration, and  how  could  they  abandon  teacher-training  to  the 
chance  that  somebody  else  will  see  its  importance  and  do  some- 
thing about  it  ?  To  correct  this  educational  scepticism  we  must 
proclaim  not  only  laws  of  psychology,  but  also  laws  of  Christian 
life  and  experience.  We  must  think  of  Christian  living  neither 
in  terms  of  a  dogmatic  system  nor  in  terms  of  an  esoteric  and 
incommunicable  salvation,  but  in  terms  of  objective  social 
relations  that  produce  and  are  produced  by  the  individually 
realized  attitude  and  purpose  called  love.  From  this  point  of 
view  we  shall  be  able  to  see  that  Christian  education  falls  under 
the  head  of  promoting  a  life  of  deliberate  purpose,  a  life  that 
fulfils  itself  by  methods  that  It  itself  can  objectively  view, 
analyze,  and  systematically  control.     How  readily  the  elements 


80  THE  PROCESS 

of  the  educative  process  fall  into  place,  and  form  a  unified  whole, 
under  this  conception  we  shall  now  see. 

The  central  fact  of  the  educative  process  is  a  growing 
Christian  experience  in  and  through  the  pupil's  social 
interactions.  If  we  really  believe  that  "where  love  is,  God 
is,"  and  if  by  love  we  understand,  as  Jesus  did,  not  a  mere 
sentiment  or  impulse,  but  a  purpose,  a  policy  for  self -guidance, 
a  thing  that  does  not  evaporate  as  soon  as  one  turns  deliberate 
attention  to  it,  then  we  can  have  a  religious  education  that 
moves  entu-ely  within  religion.  It  will  consist  fundamentally 
in  providing  for  children  conditions  in  which  love  is  experi- 
enced, practised,  wrought  into  steady  and  deliberate  living  by 
the  help  of  both  intellectual  analysis  and  habit  formation,  and 
developed  into  a  faith  that  illumines  the  crises  and  the  mysteries 
of  life.  To  speak  more  in  detail,  such  education  will  include 
the  following  part  processes: 

(1)  Making   the   pupil   acquainted   with   persons   who    really 
love  him  and  others  also.     The  first  thing  in  Christian  education 
is  not  an  idea,  but  a  personal  fellowship.     Here  is  the  truth  that 
is  confusedly  contained  in  the  current  emphasis  upon  the  person- 
ality of  the  teacher.     The  confusion  lies  in  the  substitution  of 
personal  attachment  between  pupil  and  teacher  for  attachment 
of  the  pupil  to  society  through  the  teacher.     The  importance 
of  the  acquaintance  depends  upon  the  degree  to  which  the 
pupil  realizes  that  the  love  that  the  teacher  has  for  him  is  not  a 
merely  individual  attachment,  and  that  the  joy  of  it  is  all  the 
richer  because  others  have  a  share  in  it.     We  merely  express 
this  in  another  way  if  we  say  that  the  first  and  fundamental 
element  in  the  Christian  educative  process  is  the  introduction 
of  the  pupil  to  the  specific  happiness  of  being  a  member  of  a 
v^.  society.     Here  lies  the  measureless  potentiality  of  the  family 
lias  an  agency  of  Christian  education.     Here,  as  we  shall  see,  is 
the  base-line  for  a  theory  of  the  church  as  educator.     In  the 
detailed  work  of  religious  teaching,   the  principle  is  already 
beginning  to  appear  in  such  practices  as  these:   The  teacher  of 
a  new  class  of  beginners  undertakes  as  her  first  task  to  make 
the  little  children  happily  acquainted  both  with  her  and  with 


THE  PROCESS  81 

one  another;  the  principle  of  the  organized  Sunday-school 
class  is  moving  downward  from  the  adult  and  senior  divisions 
through  the  whole  school,  effort  being  made  to  cause  each  class 
to  feel  itself  as  a  little  society,  even  though  there  be  no  formal 
constitution  or  by-laws;  and  effort  is  being  made,  by  many  en- 
richments of  social  joy,  to  obliterate  the  break  between  the 
social  grouping  on  Sunday  and  that  of  week-days.  <je^ 

(2)  As  far  as  any  pupil  finds  satisfaction  or  what  seems  to 
him  to  be  real  life  in  such  sharing,  he  experiences  what  is  fun- 
damental in  the  divine  purpose — he  has,  to  this  extent,  a  Chris- 
tian experience.  But  Christian  education  undertakes  to  de- 
velop this  experience  from  such  rudimentary  beginnings  into 
the  full  and  large  purpose  of  the  democracy  of  God.  There- 
fore, the  next  part  process  may  be  stated  as  causing  the  pupil's 
social  attachments  to  expand  from  narrower  to  wider  groups. 
Family  loyalties  must  be  merged  into  humane  interests  of  the 
widest  scope.  The  social  consciousness  of  a  Sunday-school 
class  must  enlarge  into  a  school  consciousness,  and  this  into  a 
church  consciousness ;  and  the  whole  must  flow  outward  toward 
the  whole  needy  world. 

(3)  This  outgoing  purpose  can  be  fulfilled  only  by  an  expand- 
ing series  of  social  activities.  One's  social  status,  in  the  Chris- 
tian sense  of  "social  status,"  becomes  a  firmly  accomplished 
fact  only  by  repeated  social  acts  that  become  social  habits. 
Social  character  means  nothing  less  than  arriving  at  a  point 
where  social  conduct  occurs  as  a  matter  of  course.  Likewise, 
the  exodus  from  a  lesser  to  a  greater  group  consciousness  is 
effected  not  merely  by  fresh  sympathies  but  also  by  fresh  acts 
out  of  which  habits  can  grow.  Enlargement  of  social  conscious- 
ness does  not  have  to  precede,  but  to  be  developed  in  and 
through,  enlarging  co-operation  in  serious  social  undertakings. 

It  would  be  a  happy  circumstance  if  the  term  "curriculum""^ 
could  be  understood  to  mean  not  merely  an  orderly  succession     j 
of  ideas  or  knowledges  appropriate  to  the  pupil's  expanding    I 
experience,   but  also  an  orderly  succession  of  enterprises  in    ' 
and  through  which  social  appreciation,  social  habits,  and  social 
loyalties  may  grow  into  the  full  stature  of  the  Christian's  faith. J  , 


82  THE  PROCESS 

Religious  education  moved  a  step  in  this  direction  when  occa- 
sional, unsystematized  talks  about  missions,  and  appeals  for 
missionary  contributions,  gave  way  to  definite  missionary 
enterprises  and  specific  contacts  with  particular  missionaries 
and  missionary  fields  by  a  school  or  by  a  class.  The  movement 
is  now  proceeding  much  further  by  including  works  of  mercy 
and  help  within  the  regular  program  of  each  class.  Here  and 
there  an  older  class  has  adopted  a  program  of  investigation 
and  of  labor  for  community  betterment.  These  are  signs  of 
mighty  import  for  the  future  of  religious  education.  They  are 
the  rosy  fingers  of  dawn  opening  the  portals  of  day. 

(4)  Within  this  practice  in  loving  we  find  the  basis  for  a  most 
vital  theory  of  Christian  instruction.     For  now,  instead  of  at- 
tempting to  transfer  to  the  child  mind  certain  truths  that  we 
hope  will  enter  into  his  experience  in  a  vital  manner  at  some 
indefinite  future  time,  we  help  him  to  define,  understand,  and 
improve  something  that  he  is  already  doing  and  enjoying.    There 
is  no  longer  the  deadly  separation  of  knowing  from  doing,  or 
of  Christian  doctrine  from  Christian  experience.     The  function 
of  instruction  now  becomes  this :  To  assist  the  child  to  analyze 
;the  situations,  purposes,  and  activities  with  which  he  has  to  do, 
(so  that  impulsive  goodness  shall  grow  into  a  deliberate  good 
I  will;  so  that  the  sphere  of  the  good  will  shall  be  better  and  better 
I  understood;   so   that   co-operation   in   social   causes   shall   be 
organized  on  a  wider  and  wider  scale  and  with  ever-increasing 
efficiency,  and  so  that  all  the  resources  of  a  cultivated  spirit 
may  be  known  and  made  available  for  all. 

This  is  not  a  narrower  or  less  intellectual  conception  of  Chris- 
tian instruction  than  the  one  that  takes  its  starting-point 
from  the  dogmatic-intellectualistic  notion  of  divine  revelation. 
Stimulus  for  intellectual  activity  is  here,  and  the  interest  to 
which  appeal  is  made  is  as  broad  as  the  Christian  ideal  itself. 
Anything  in  history,  literature,  or  doctrine  that  actually  illumi- 
^  nates  the  path  of  active  love,  any  kind  of  knowledge  that  can 
;  be  turned  into  power  for  social  living,  anything  that  imagina- 
tion or  discursive  reason  can  contribute  to  thoroughly  socialized 
satisfactions — all  this  belongs  within  Christian  instruction  under 


THE  PROCESS  83 

the  social  presuppositions  that  we  have  adopted.  We  extrude 
intellectualism,  but  not  intellect.  A  mere  pitter-patter  of 
imposed  activities  would  not  meet  this  standard  any  better 
than  a  pitter-patter  of  imposed  dogmatic  formulae  or  of  memo- 
rized fragments  of  Scripture.  In  short,  the  Christian  law  of 
active,  world-wide  love  is  the  foundation  of  Christian  instruc- 
tion as  well  as  of  Christian  conduct,  the  foundation  not  only 
for  selecting  material,  but  also  for  grading  it,  the  foundation 
likewise  of  the  pupil's  interest  in  it. 

(5)  Finally,  this  education  in  the  art  of  brotherhood  contains 
within  itself  the  most  mtal  of  all  possible  methods  of  evoki7ig  faith 
in  a  fatherly  God  and  in  a  human  destiny  that  outreaches  all  the 
accidents  of  our  frailty.  Let  it  be  freely  granted  that  less  social 
methods  of  education  can  induce  children,  and  men  also,  to 
confess  without  a  shadow  of  insincerity  a  belief  in  God  and  in 
the  life  everlasting,  and  even  that  beliefs  thus  acquired  may 
grow,  and  deepen,  and  enter  creatively  into  conduct.  To  say 
that  there  is  a  still  more  vital  way  is  not  the  same  as  saying  that 
all  ways  except  one  are  bad.  Our  practical  concern,  however, 
is  not  merely  to  produce  sincere  belief  in  God  and  immortality, 
but  to  make  our  pupils  yearn  for  God  and  for  the  complete 
triumph  of  his  social  desire.  In  our  capacity  for  loving,  which 
is  the  same  as  our  capacity  to  desire  complete  justice,  lies  the 
possibility  of  a  faith  that  is  not  merely  an  intellectual  ante- 
chamber of  the  divine  presence,  but  a  faith  that  is  one  with 
divine  fellowship  itself.  In  the  spirit  of  the  writer  of  the  First 
Epistle  of  John,  which  is  the  spirit  of  Jesus  also,  we  may  frankly 
question  whether  it  is  important  to  cultivate  in  the  young  any 
belief  in  God  that  can  coexist  in  the  same  person  with  deafness 
to  the  human  cry.  Is  not  any  such  belief  actually  dangerous 
to  society?  History  shows  that  belief  in  God  may  be  used  to 
sanctify  and  strengthen  unjust  social  ordinances  and  authorities, 
and  that  from  this  possibility  even  belief  that  sincerely  regards 
itself  as  Christian  is  by  no  means  exempt. 

If  it  be  possible  thus  to  fuse  love  and  faith,  so  that  even  in 
childhood  the  voice  of  God  and  the  voice  of  human  need  shall 
be  one  voice,  this  is  the  path  that  religious  education  should  by 


84  THE  PROCESS 

all  means  choose.  It  is  possible.  As  Mrs.  Mumford's  experi- 
ments show/  the  small  child's  first  prayer  can  be  a  genuinely 
social  reaction,  and  he  can  be  led  directly  forward  in  the  identi- 
fication of  his  fellowship  with  God  with  his  fellowship  with 
men.  In  a  considerable  number  of  Sunday  schools  the  social 
approach  to  God  already  begins  to  control  the  teaching  about 
him.  A  child  compared  two  Sunday  schools  as  follows:  "In 
that  one  they  teach  you  all  about  God;  in  this  one  they  teach 
you  to  help  God."  We  are  still  in  the  beginnings  of  such  in- 
struction, of  course,  and  much  experimentation,  with  many 
blunders,  is  still  before  us.  But  the  way  ought  by  this  time 
to  be  known.  It  is  the  way  of  love,  which  is  the  whole  law,  not 
only  of  the  deeds  that  are  worth  doing,  but  also  of  the  beliefs 
that  are  worth  holding.  In  religious  education  as  elsewhere 
love  never  faileth,  and  in  the  triunity  of  faith,  hope,  and  love, 
it  is  supreme. 

1 E.  E.  R.  Mumford,  The  Dawn  of  Religion  in  the  Mind  of  the  Child  (London, 
1915). 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  CHURCH  AS  EDUCATOR 

The  religious  dependence  of  the  individual.  In  all  our 
common  human  interests  that  which  the  individual  achieves 
and  that  which  society  contributes  to  him  are  inextricably 
intertwined.  They  are  more  than  intertwined;  the  relation 
is  Hke  that  of  a  leaf  to  the  trunk  of  the  tree  that  bears  it.  We 
see  this  clearly  in  the  poHtical  attitudes  of  a  free  citizen;  how- 
ever free  may  be  his  thinking,  his  convictions  are  a  result  of  his- 
torical processes  and  of  association  with  some  existing  group. 
This  is  not  less  true  of  religion,  which  is  historically  an  affair 
of  groups — tribes,  nations,  churches,  and  parties — and  of  drifts 
within  and  without  the  churches.  Our  religious  progressives, 
mugwumps,  indifferentists,  and  even  secularists,  as  well  as  the 
conservatives  and  reactionaries,  are  incarnations  of  group 
sentiments.  Even  the  self-made  man  obtains  material  and 
design  to  a  large  extent  from  the  social  medium  in  which  he 
moves. 

No  church  is  made  up  of  men  and  women  who  belong  to  it 
simply  because  of  their  individually  reasoned-out  convictions. 
No;  a  church  makes  its  members  more  than  the  members 
make  the  church.  This  fact — the  infusion  of  social  sap  in  what 
we  nevertheless  rightly  call  individual — is  the  net  remainder 
of  the  mediaeval  realistic  notion  that  the  church  is  the  prius  of 
its  members,  or  the  eternal  "form"  of  which  they  are  the 
"matter."  Here  is  authority  in  its  inevitable  actuality;  rea- 
soned or  unreasoned,  intended  or  unintended,  it  is  here  by 
virtue  of  the  fact  that  men  move  in  groups.  But,  as  we  shall 
see,  this  does  not  imply  that  one  part  of  a  group  must  be  pas- 
sively moulded  by  another  part. 

85 


86  THE  CHURCH 

The  church  considered  as  an  instance  of  "  social  hered- 
ity." The  term  "social  heredity '^  has  been  invented  to  desig- 
nate the  fact  that  acquired  characters  of  a  mental  sort  are 
passed  on  from  generation  to  generation  without  any  necessary 
dependence  upon  our  prevision  or  planning.^  They  are  not 
transmitted  in  the  procreative  process,  of  course,  but  by  non- 
deliberative  mental  processes  of  which  suggestion  is  the  type. 
Thus  it  is  that  numberless  modes  of  action,  feeling,  and  thought 
that  have  the  appearance  of  being  instinctive,  or  self-evident, 
are  in  reality  matters  of  habit.  Our  sense  of  propriety  as  to 
this  or  that,  our  conscientious  feelings  as  to  this  or  that  con- 
duct, a  mass  of  preferences  that  seem  to  be  almost  as  inevi- 
table as  gravitation,  a  large  proportion  of  the  things  that  we 
regard  either  as  self-evident  or  as  absurd,  might  have  been  other- 
wise; they  are  otherwise  in  other  times  and  among  other  peo- 
ples. However  they  got  started,  they  continue  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  by  reason  of  continuous  pressure  from  the 
set  ways  of  older  persons  upon  the  plastic  minds  of  the  young.^ 

Our  social  inheritance  includes  a  vast  number  of  man-ways, 
from  the  merest  trifles  to  the  most  momentous  concerns  of 
peoples  and  of  humanity  itself.  Satire  has  found  its  happy 
hunting-ground  in  our  subservience  to  conventions.  Who  but 
a  very  inferior,  or  else  a  very  exalted,  person,  male  or  female, 
dares  to  dress  as  comfort  and  common  sense  dictate?  The 
starched  collars  that  plague  my  neck  are  a  yoke  of  servitude; 
I  would  put  them  away  if  I  were  strong  enough.  And  I  would 
emancipate  myself  from  stiff  head-gear,  and  from  coats  during 
the  torrid  days  of  summer,  and  instead  of  limiting  myself  to 
the  sombre  colors  of  conventional  male  attire,  I  would  learn 
color  schemes  from  leaves  and  blossoms,  from  sea,  sky,  and 
cloud,  from  sunrises  and  rainbows — if  I  dared ! 

»J.  M.  Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations  (1906),  chap.  II,  and 
Appendix  A.  There  are  disadvantages  in  the  use  of  "heredity"  in  any  but  a 
strictly  physiological  sense,  but  I  permit  myself  the  liberty  because  a  specific 
term  is  needed,  and  no  better  one  has  been  suggested. 

2  The  manner  in  which  things-as-they-are  tend  to  become  presuppositions 
of  our  thought  as  to  how  they  ought  to  be  is  well  illustrated  by  this  incident: 
A  gentleman  who  resides  in  a  state  that  has  recently  granted  the  franchise  to 
women  remarked:  "Now  that  we  have  actually  seen  women  voting,  it  seems 
natural  enough,  and  the  wonder  is  that  we  ever  thought  otherwise !" 


THE  CHURCH  87 

Our  religious  convictions,  whether  they  are  true  or  not,  and 
even  our  passionate  aspirations,  arise  within  us  and  become 
fixed  as  the  meaning  of  hfe  for  us  very  largely  because  there 
are  churches.  A  church  is  an  educational  institution  primarily 
because  of  this  kind  of  fact,  because,  in  short,  by  its  very  pres- 
ence, it  produces  so  largely  the  presuppositions  of  social  think- 
ing, and  maintains  a  great  body  of  standards  that  are  taken 
for  granted. 

The  interplay  of  social  purpose  with  social  suggestion 
in  the  churches.  The  fact  that  "  what  is  "  thus  easily  and  spon- 
taneously transforms  itself  in  our  minds  into  "what  ought  to 
be,"  or  at  least  into  "what  is  natural,"  gives  rise  to  the  need 
for  some  provision  for  an  ever-recurring  re-examination  of  stand- 
ards, with  resultant  revision  and  freshening  of  life's  enterprise. 
Convention,  institutionalism,  and  vested  interests  are  always 
ready,  in  religion  as  elsewhere,  to  suffocate  the  spirit  as  well 
as  to  serve  it.  The  church  of  the  spirit  must  therefore  provide 
means  and  measures  for  continual  spiritual  renewal  at  the  sources 
of  spiritual  life.  To  education  in  the  non-technical  sense  of 
transmission  of  standards  by  suggestion,  must  be  added  educa- 
tion in  the  technical  sense  of  deliberate  choice  of  what  shall  be 
transmitted,  and  systematic  procedures  for  securing  effective 
transmission.  But  this  involves,  as  a  phase  of  the  church's 
educational  vocation,  ever-repeated  re-examination  of  her  own 
conduct. 

It  is  easy  to  deceive  ourselves  as  to  what  the  church  is  doing 
with  the  young.  Because  we  put  edifying  words  into  a  text- 
book or  into  the  mouths  of  teachers,  we  imagine  that  we  are 
putting  the  whole  weight  of  the  church  upon  the  side  of  ideal 
goodness.  Not  so !  What  the  church  is — to  paraphrase 
Emerson's  epigram — speaks  so  loudly  that  the  young  do  not 
hear  what  the  church  says.  Social  assumptions  that  are  un- 
expressed in  words  but  lived  out  in  conduct  modify  and  inter- 
pret every  ethical  formula.  When  we  who  pray  to  God  as 
Father,  and  call  humanity  a  family,  and  exalt  the  idea  of  ser- 
vice, nevertheless  take  unprotesting  comfort  in  the  anti- 
domestic,   unbrotherly,   caste-like   inequalities  of  opportunity 


88  THE  CHURCH 

that  prevail  in  the  world,  then,  however  unconscious  we  may  be 
of  compromising  our  religion,  we  actually  become  teachers  of 
an  anti-Christian  ethic.  A  teacher  of  a  Sunday-school  class 
of  self-supporting  young  women  said:  "Many  of  my  working 
girls  do  not  grasp  the  ideal  of  the  Consumers  League,  for  they 
have  never  consciously  known  persons  who  sacrificed  their  own 
comfort  in  commercial  transactions  that  persons  less  fortunate 
with  whom  they  were  unacquainted  might  be  benefited." 

Therefore  the  church's  conscious  selection  of  what  is  to  be 
presented  to  the  young  ought  to  extend  beyond  and  below  all 
lesson  material,  all  school  activities,  and  all  devotional  exer- 
cises, even  to  the  social  setting  of  the  whole  in  our  present  life. 
If  the  social  setting  of  Sunday-school  experience  produces  in  the 
pupil  no  sense  of  a  social  contrast  between  the  church  and  the 
world,  no  awareness  that  there  is  going  on  within  the  church 
the  self-criticism  through  which  alone  it  can  emancipate  itself 
from  its  limited  sociality,  no  realization  that  church  life  means 
per  se  agonizing  for  a  better  social  order,  then  the  church  it- 
self becomes  an  agency  for  perpetuating  the  unbrotherliness 
that  its  words  condemn.  There  is  even  a  possibility — a  cer- 
tainty, rather — that  individuals,  if  not  whole  ecclesiastical 
groups,  will  attach  a  divine  sanctity  to  civil  laws  and  social 
incrustations  that  actually  hinder  the  love  that  is  justice. 

The  chtirch  as  a  fellowship  of  old  and  young.  We  may 
now  go  as  far  as  to  assert  that  the  church,  considered  as  educa- 
tor, is  primarily  a  fellowship  of  older  and  younger  persons, 
and  that  if  this  fellowship  be  rich  and  aspiring  it  will  be  educa- 
tionally effective,  whatever  be  the  material  and  the  method 
of  instruction.  Our  purpose  should  be,  of  course,  to  make  the 
fellowship  and  the  instruction  one  consistent  whole,  one  move- 
ment toward  the  same  point;  but  it  is  well  to  remind  ourselves 
that  fellowship  on  the  plane  of  the  social  principles  of  Jesus, 
even  if  it  be  joined  with  defective  instruction,  has  far  more 
power  to  develop  actual  Christian  living  in  the  young  than  the 
best  of  instruction  can  have  if  it  be  separated  from  the  living 
word,  which  is  human  love  in  actual  operation. 

Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  church  education  at  its  best  is  an 


THE  CHURCH  89 

initiation  into  a  living  fellowship,  being  in  this  respect  a  true 
successor  of  ancient  tribal  initiations.  But  wherein  does  a 
truly  educational  fellowship  on  the  Christian  plane  consist? 
This  deserves  careful  study,  for  good  will  can  miss  its  way  by 
misunderstanding  itself. 

(1)  Christian  fellowship  is,  in  the  first  place,  "good-fellow- 
ship,'' or  having  pleasures  in  common,  and  heightening  them  by 
the  very  fact  that  they  are  enjoyed  together.  Pleasurable  experi- 
ences are  a  fundamentally  necessary  part  of  the  child's  acquain- 
tance with  the  church.  They  are  necessary  because,  since 
satisfaction  in  any  act  tends  toward  the  repetition  of  it,  they 
help  toward  habit  formation.  Training  is  most  effective  when 
it  takes  place  in  a  pervasive  atmosphere  of  cheer,  amiability, 
and  happy  expectancy.  Training  in  Christian  living  is  most 
effective  when  its  activities  include  the  present  sharing  of 
pleasures,  that  is,  present  Christian  living.  The  happiest  expe- 
riences of  the  young  should  be  found  first  of  all  in  the  family, 
but  next  in  the  church. 

(2)  Good  fellowship  in  the  church  is  itself  a  process  of  Chris- 
tian education ;  it  is  not  to  be  used  as  mere  bait  wherewith  to  in- 
duce the  young  to  submit  to  an  education  that  is  not  to  their 
taste.  The  church  has  a  direct  interest,  not  merely  a  derived 
one,  in  play  and  frolic,  in  the  interplay  of  the  sexes  that  leads 
up  to  courtship  and  marriage,  and  in  the  cultivation  of  acquain- 
tance just  because  persons  as  such  are  worth  knowing.  There 
are  few  developments  of  religious  life  in  modern  times  as  signifi- 
cant as  the  little-heralded  introduction  of  play  into  the  churches. 
What,  a  church  at  play?  What  would  our  spiritual  fathers 
say  to  it?  Here  are  Sunday-school  baseball-teams,  with  ref- 
erences thereto  from  the  sacred  desk  on  Sunday  1  Here  are 
cooking-stoves  and  kitchens  in  the  churches,  and  club-rooms, 
and  gymnasiums,  and  swimming-tanks !  Well,  whatever  the 
fathers  might  say,  the  voice  of  love  declares  that  wherever  and 
however  we  enrich  human  fellowship  on  the  simple,  democratic 
plane  of  regard  for  men  as  such,  we  do  the  will  of  the  Father, 
we  bring  nearer  the  world-wide  realization  of  the  democracy  of 
God. 


90  THE  CHURCH 

(3)  Christian  fellowship,  though  it  start  on  the  plane  of  a  child's 
fondness  for  play,  must  continuously  grow  into  community  of 
purposeful  labor — covimunity  not  merely  between  children,  or 
between  children  and  their  respective  teachers,  but  between  all  the 
members  of  the  church  group,  both  old  and  young.  "  Come,  let  us 
live  with  our  children/*  said  Froebel.  We  are  accustomed  to 
apply  this  to  parents  and  teachers,  but  it  is  applicable  also  to 
any  social  institution  that  brings  children  and  adults  into 
contact  with  each  other.  To  live  religiously  and  ecclesiastically 
with  the  young  means  to  play  with  them,  but  it  means  also  to 
let  them  work  with  us.  It  implies  that  we  lay  responsibilities 
upon  them — real,  not  imitation  responsibilities — that  we  train 
them  in  initiative  by  giving  them  initiative,  and  that  we  de- 
velop their  judgment  by  letting  them  into  the  inside  of  church 
affairs.  In  many  churches  there  exists  a  social  stratification 
based  upon  age  that  works  directly  against  effective  training  in 
church  activities. 

(4)  At  the  risk  of  repetition  let  it  be  said  that  fellowship  with 
the  young  does  not  consist  in  giving  gifts,  or  in  providing  privileges, 
or  in  promoting  the  social  happiness  of  the  young  as  a  class  by 
itself,  or  even  in  promoting  good  works  on  the  part  of  such  a  class. 
These  ought  we  to  do,  but  not  to  leave  the  other  undone.  The 
elder  must  give  themselves  to  the  younger.  "  I  want  not  yours, 
but  you !"  is  the  appeal  of  young  life  to  maturity.  The  appeal 
is  partly  responded  to  when  maturity  plays  with  children  and 
youth,  but  the  response  is  not  complete  until  the  experience  of 
the  child  in  the  church,  from  the  kindergarten  age  onward, 
includes  continuous  and  growing  participation  in  the  most 
serious  purposes,  labors,  and  deliberations  of  the  mature  mem- 
bers and  leaders. 

(5)  All  this  implies,  without  doubt,  some  reversal  of  traditions. 
In  some  Protestant  quarters  children  have  been  expected  to 
remain  outside  the  fellowship  until  some  indefinite  future. 
Even  the  formal  doctrine  that  they  are  within  the  fellowship 
has  not  always  produced  real  community  life,  but  rather  par- 
ticipation in  the  symbols  of  it,  or  even  less  than  this.  Some- 
what generally  the  church  has  made  itself  a  schoolmasterish 


THE  CHURCH  91 

setter  of  formal  lessons,  or  a  judge  and  rebuker  of  faults,  or  a 
regulator  of  amusements,  rather  than  a  coworker.  Not  seldom 
the  young  look  upon  the  church  as  an  administrator  of  mysteries 
that  are  solemnly  remote  from  social  joys.  Every  one  of  these 
traditions  is  anti-educational.  To  overcome  them  will  require 
one  measure  in  one  communion,  another  in  another,  according 
to  varying  ecclesiastical  constitutions,  laws,  and  customs. 

(6)  Finally,  when  felloivship  of  old  and  young  in  social  joys,  in 
purpose,  and  in  labor  becomes  the  basal  thing  in  the  educational 
policy  of  the  churches,  we  shall  lay  the  indispensable  corner-stone 
of  Christian  unity.  The  disunion  within  our  religion  goes  far 
deeper  than  multiplicity  of  independent  administrations,  di- 
versity of  doctrinal  standards,  and  contrasting  modes  of  wor- 
ship. Nothing  less  is  involved  than  the  fundamental  impulses 
and  attitudes  upon  which  society  itself  depends,  and  specifically 
those  upon  which  alone  a  democracy  of  God  could  possibly  be 
built.  Do  we  not  lack  in  all  the  churches  a  social  purpose  so 
profound  that  young  as  well  as  old  can  appreciate  it  ?  For  in  "^ 
truth  that  which  can  produce  genuine  Christian  unity  between 
youth  and  maturity  is  the  fundamentals,  such  as  active  desire 
that  everybody  should  have  enough  to  eat,  that  everybody 
should  be  protected  from  disease,  that  all  the  sick  should  be 
cared  for,  that  everybody  should  have  friends,  that  everybody 
should  have  opportunity  for  education  and  for  enjoyment  of  the 
finest  products  of  the  human  mind,  that  children  and  youth 
should  everywhere  be  protected  from  vicious  influences,  that 
war  should  cease,  and  that  the  Father  should  be  able  at  last  to 
look  upon  human  society  and  say:   "Behold,  it  is  very  good  !"^ 

It  is  because  we  are  not  ready  to  unite  with  children  in  such 
fundamental,  socially  reconstructive  purposes  that  we  ransack 
history  for  a  basis  for  Christian  union.  It  is  the  future,  the 
unfulfilled  task,  the  unreserving  love  of  men,   the  yearning 

1  The  capacity  of  children  to  appreciate  the  simple  justice  that  is  profound 
has  been  remarked  again  and  again.  A  very  small  boy  who  was  eating  the 
inside  of  his  slice  of  bread,  but  rejecting  the  crusts,  was  told:  "There  are  lots 
of  Uttle  cliildren  who  would  be  glad  to  get  as  much  as  a  crust  of  bread.  They 
sometimes  pick  over  the  refuse  in  garbage  cans  in  order  to  obtain  food."  The 
young  thinker,  with  a  worried  expression,  replied:  "Why  doesn't  the  Heavenly 
Father  give  them  enough  to  eat?" 


92  THE  CHURCH 

desire  of  the  Father  that  all  men  should  be  one  family;  it  is 
common  objective  purpose  and  labor,  that  must  heal  our  divi- 
sions. When  we  have  raised  a  generation  or  two  of  church- 
members  united  with  one  another  in  their  various  denomina- 
tions upon  this  basis,  we  shall  find  the  barriers  between  denomi- 
nations very,  very  thin. 

The  church  as  a  worshipping  society.  If  what  has  just 
been  said  leads  to  the  question  wherein,  then,  the  church 
differs  from  any  other  organization  of  the  good  will,  and  why  a 
child  needs  any  social  training  beyond  participation  in  ordinary 
philanthropies  and  reforms,  the  answer  is  that,  in  spite  of 
shortcomings,  the  churches,  and  they  only  of  all  our  social 
institutions,  undertake  to  accept  the  radical  consequences  of 
Jesus'  social  idealism.  They  have  adopted — let  us  say  it 
frankly — a  point  of  view  that  leads  to  consequences  that  they 
did  not  at  first  foresee,  consequences  the  portent  of  which  even 
now  we  feel  more  than  we  can  define.  We  Christians  have  a 
sad  smile  to-day  for  the  simple-mindedness  that  could  believe 
that  the  missionary  task  would  be  essentially  completed  when 
everybody  on  earth  had  been  told  something.  We  are  beginning 
to  face  the  appalling  duty  of  building  a  world  civilization  based 
squarely,  uncompromisingly,  upon  the  proposition  that  all 
men  are  brothers;  and  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  our  fellow- 
ship with  the  Father — the  whole  problem  of  worship — is  tied 
up  with  our  relations  to  this  enterprise.  We  have,  then, 
two  aspects  of  the  church  as  a  worshipping  society  that  are  of 
the  first  importance  for  religious  education. 

(1)  The  peculiar  significance  of  the  church  as  educator  is  found, 
in  the  first  place,  in  the  comprehensiveness  and  the  radicalness  of 
the  principle  ^f  }j,^imnr,  f^JJf^ff^j^Jijj^  that  it  professes.  Go  over  in 
your  mind  all  other  groups  and  group  activities  that  aim  at 
the  betterment  of  mankind,  including  the  state,  the  state  schools, 
the  most  social-minded  political  party  that  you  know,  the  re- 
form organizations,  philanthropic  agencies  of  all  kinds,  institu- 
tions for  research  and  for  teaching,  and  for  aesthetic  and  social 
enjoyment.  What  a  magnificent  array  it  is !  What  a  tonic 
for  our  faith  in  man!     No  enlightened  Christian  but  thanks 


THE  CHURCH  93 

God  for  these  forces  that  are  all  helping  to  bring  us  onward 
toward  a  real  brotherhood.  The  function  of  religious  education 
with  respect  to  them  is  to  raise  up  intelligent  supporters  for  every 
effective  humanitarian  and  socializing  agency.  Yet  the  fact 
remains  that  each  of  these  group  activities — wisely  enough, 
no  doubt — declines  to  contemplate  man  as  man  in  his  total 
need;  no  one  insists  upon  complete  justice,  but  only  upon 
justice  in  some  restricted  sphere;  every  one  puts  off  upon 
somebody  else  the  declaring  of  what  brotherhood  in  its  uncom- 
promising wholeness  means;  no  one  proposes  the  radical  deal- 
ing with  human  nature,  the  reconstruction  of  motive,  that  is 
involved  in  effective  brotherhood;  no  one  goes  with  men  into 
and  through  the  deepest  valleys  of  sorrow  and  the  poignant 
issues  of  destiny. 

But  the  churches  mean  to  undertake  this.  They  are,  of 
course,  beset  with  human  frailty  and  error,  but  we  criticise 
their  defects  precisely  from  the  standpoint  of  their  own  avowed 
principles.  They  have  in  fact  taken  into  their  hands  a  sword 
that  pierces  their  own  bosom,  and  it  is  their  hold  upon  this 
sword  that  gives  them  a  peculiar  function  in  social  educa- 
tion. The  Christ-spirit  within  us  urges  us  to  believe  in  man  to 
the  utmost,  holding  that  any  human  life  outweighs  all  possible 
private  profits;  to  believe  in  loving  to  the  utmost,  and  that  only 
by  losing  our  lives  as  merely  individual  can  we  have  fulness  of 
life;  to  believe  in  the  possibility  of  purifying  the  motives  of 
men  until  selfishness  is  really  eradicated;  to  believe  that  a 
divinely  good  social  order  is  possible  on  earth;  to  believe  that  the 
apparent  defeat  of  love  by  death  can  be  swallowed  up  in  a  greater 
victory  of  love,  and  to  be  unabashed  by  the  tragedy  and  the 
mystery  before  which  so  many  social  forces  shrink;  and  in  all 
this  to  remember  that  we  are  not  going  to  war  at  our  own 
charges — the  charges  of  our  imperfect  wisdom,  and  of  the  pov- 
erty of  our  resources — but  that  the  eternal  God  is  herein  utter- 
ing in  us  a  love  that  will  not  be  denied.  The  churches  are  called 
by  their  own  avowed  principles  to  carry  this  social  radicalism 
into  life.  They  are  to  be  quick  to  provide  for  any  unfilled  social 
need,  but  they  are  also  to  work  within  all  constructive  social 


94  THE  CHURCH 

agencies,  and  to  inspire  them  to  believe  in  brotherhood  to  the 
utmost,  that  is,  to  be  as  radically  social  as  their  respective  limi- 
tations permit.  This  spirit  of  loving  to  the  uttermost,  which 
is  likewise  the  spirit  of  self-criticism  to  the  uttermost,  is  the  first 
thing  that  specifically  Christian  education  adds  to  the  other 
agencies  of  social  progress. 

(2)  The  peculiar  significance  of  the  church  as  educator  is  found, 
in  the  second  place,  in  its  maintenance  of  ivorship  of  the  Father, 
the  source  and  the  present  inspirer  of  the  love  that,  because  it 
will  brook  no  limits,  is  so  terrifyingly  just.  There  is  no  break, 
or  partition,  or  point  of  transition,  between  the  Christian's 
friendship  with  men  and  his  friendship  with  God.  Hence  the 
significance  of  common  worship.  Communion  of  man  with 
man  reaches  its  climax  only  when  the  human  is  felt  to  contain 
the  divine.  Emerson  called  this  the  experience  of  "the  Over- 
soul."  The  continuity  of  love  with  worship  manifests  itself 
variously.  Parental  and  conjugal  affection  in  their  purest  and 
most  elevated  self-consciousness  feel  something  of  awe,  of 
reverence,  of  fulfilling  a  mission.  Though  our  formulated  faiths 
grow  weak,  duty  goes  on  speaking  to  us  as  "Stern  daughter  of 
the  voice  of  God."  When  our  sympathy  enters  most  unre- 
servedly— that  is,  with  the  eyes  of  justice — into  the  woes  of 
the  world,  then  in  the  very  depths  of  the  dark  valley  there  de- 
scend upon  us  elevation  of  spirit,  illumination  of  the  world 
darkness,  a  realization  of  an  encompassing  One  as  rejoicing 
within  us. 

The  common  worship  of  Christians  is  ideally,  and  to  some 
extent  actually,  the  fostering  of  this  communion,  which  is  at 
once  human  and  divine — most  human  because  it  is  divine,  most 
divine  because  it  is  incarnate.  When  we  worship  together  we 
remind  ourselves  of  this  God — our  God;  we  reflect  upon  his 
goodness,  so  outgoing,  self-giving,  all-encompassing,  and  upon 
the  ways  in  which  it  has  unfolded  itself  to  us,  particularly  upon 
Jesus;  in  the  light  of  the  goodness  of  God  our  pettiness  and 
self-centredness  are  held  before  us  until  we  repent  and  set 
about  removing  the  inner  obstacles  that  obstruct  the  utter- 
ance of  divine  love  through  us  to  our  fellows;  here,  pausing  from 


THE  CHURCH  95 

the  multiplicity  of  affairs  to  seek  a  central,  organizing  principle 
for  them  all,  and  lifting  our  eyes  from  the  particular  stitches 
that  we  have  been  taking  in  the  flowing  garment  of  divinity 
in  order  that  we  may  contemplate  the  garment  itself,  we  find 
meaning,  rationality.  In  our  existence;  rationality,  however, 
not  as  something  static,  not  as  something  to  be  merely  gazed 
at  and  admired,  but  rationality  as  direction  for  our  forces,  as 
effort  that  is  satisfied  to  be  effort,  as  labor  that  asks  for  no  idle- 
ness as  its  reward,  as  suffering  with  and  for  others  that  does  not 
count  itself  as  loss,  as  purpose  that  is  large  enough. 

Christian  worship  is  thus  realization  of  the  democracy  of 
God — realization  by  imagination,  by  fresh  insights,  by  recti- 
fication of  purposes,  by  the  coincident  consciousness  of  God  and 
our  fellows — nay,  the  interfused  consciousness  of  them,  the 
consciousness  of  God  as  here  and  now  Incarnating  himself  In  us 
as  a  society.  When  worship  is  fully  Christian  it  is  fellowship 
through  and  through,  fellowship  freeing  Itself  from  all  restraints, 
and  therefore  continuous  with  everything  in  the  world  that 
makes  for  brotherhood. 

Such  worship  has  tremendous  educational  possibilities.  They 
are  to  be  realized  partly  by  suggestion  in  words  reinforced  by 
music,  by  architectural  beauty,  and  especially  by  the  presence 
of  a  whole  congregation  that  Is  attending  to  the  same  things 
and  performing  outward  acts  in  unison.  But  both  method  and 
content  of  such  suggestion  need  careful  scrutiny  in  order  that 
the  congregation  may  be  led  away  from  the  crowd  type  of 
consciousness  into  that  of  the  deliberative  group.  How  is  this 
to  be  done?  By  ever  fresh  applications  of  the  ancient  Chris- 
tian doctrine  that  God  is  made  manifest  in  human  life.  To 
see  life  objectively,  discriminatingly,  and  to  reflect  upon  what 
we,  with  God,  want  it  to  be — this  is  of  the  essence  of  Christian 
worship.  When  we  resort  to  the  church  to  escape  from  the 
problems  and  the  perplexities  of  human  society,  we  do  not  fol- 
low the  Christ  who  ever  takes  upon  himself  the  form  of  man, 
ever  becomes  the  servant  of  man.  Worship  as  escape  from  this 
degenerates  into  non-Christian  crowd  sesthetlcism  or  else  into 
non-Christian  clubdom. 


96  THE  CHURCH 

Again,  when  worship  has  its  centre  in  priestly  manipulation 
of  supernatural  mysteries,  it  uses  suggestion  as  an  instrument 
for  keeping  the  many  obedient  to  the  few,  and  for  repeating 
the  past  instead  of  using  the  past  as  material  wherewith  to 
build  fairer  structures  of  the  spirit  of  brotherhood.  The 
methods  of  suggestion  can  be  used  either  to  hold  children  at  the 
crowd  level,  or  to  produce  the  sort  of  pause  that  leads  to  reflec- 
tion, and  to  bring  to  attention  objective  material  upon  which 
a  deliberate  social  will  can  be  formed.  In  short,  true  to  the 
meaning  of  incarnation,  worship  can  develop  communion  with 
God  in  and  through  growing  social  intelligence  and  growing 
social  purpose,  as  these,  conversely,  can  be  developed  through 
communion  with  God. 


CHAPTER  IX 
A  NEW  THEORY  OF  THE  CURRICULUM 

The  elements  of  the  problem.  At  one  point  and  another 
our  discussion  has  aheady  touched  upon  the  curriculum,  either 
explicitly,  or  by  way  of  implication.  But  not  until  now  have 
all  the  elements  of  the  problem  been  before  us.  Broadly  con- 
sidered, the  problem  to  which  our  discussion  has  led  us  is  this : 
How  to  plan  a  progressive  order  for  the  pupil's  social  reactions — 
progressive  in  the  sense  of  moving  toward  and  into  the  full, 
intelligent,  active  sociality  of  Christian  maturity.  Such  a 
plan  would  constitute  a  curriculum. 

This  social  and  functional  conception  of  a  "course  of  study" 
is  fundamentally  at  variance  with  our  traditions.  Until  very 
recently  "curriculum"  has  implied  that  we  formulate  a  body  of 
ideas  that  we  wish  to  impose  upon  the  pupil,  arrange  an  order 
in  which  they  are  to  be  learned,  and  plan  ways  for  inducing  him 
to  attend  to  them.  This,  which  may  be  called  the  "imposition 
theory"  of  the  curriculum,  grew  out  of  and  expressed  the 
individualistic  view  of  salvation,  which  was  at  the  same  time  an 
intellectualistic  view  of  the  faith  that  saves.  Not  that  any 
consistency  was  achieved  in  practice.  Quite  the  contrary. 
After  telling  the  things  that  must  surely  be  believed  unto  salva- 
tion, the  teacher  still  felt  and  knew  that  the  task  of  Christianiz- 
ing the  heart  remained  over.  Hence  the  assiduity  with  which 
"applications"  were  appended  to  every  piece  of  curriculum 
material.  Hence  also  the  overemphasis  upon  the  personality 
of  the  teacher,  and  the  resort  to  beguilements,  persuasions,  and 
emotional  pressure  to  induce  pupils  to  be  religious,  all  of  which 
testifies  to  a  cleft  between  curriculum  and  life. 

The  point  of  view  that  we  have  now  reached  in  the  present 
discussion  bases  the  very  notion  of  curriculum  upon  the  vital 

97 


98  THE  CURRICULUM 

reactions  that  the  older  scheme  merely  appended  to  the  course 
of  study.  The  new  theory  unreservedly  accepts  the  truth  that 
out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life,  and  that  consequently  a 
-  curriculum  is  not  primarily  a  systematic  set  of  ideas,  but  a 
-J  progressive  order  of  motives  actually  at  work,  actually  fruiting 
here  and  now.  The  elements  that  have  to  be  considered  may 
be  stated  in  a  chain  as  follows: 

(a)  To  help  the  pupil  to  experience  growing  communion  with 
God. 

(6)  In  and  through  growing  human  fellowships  in  the  family, 
the  church,  and  elsewhere. 

(c)  Fellowship  in  the  act  of  worship,  with  the  help  of  music 
and  the  other  arts. 

{d)  And  in  constructive  and  remedial  social  activities. 

{e)  Which  include  the  missionary  enterprise,  but  expand  it. 

(/)  All  of  which  requires  constant  and  growing  discrimination, 
foresight,  and  deliberation. 

{g)  And  for  this  reason  calls  for  illumination  from  Scripture, 
history,  doctrines,  science,  current  events,  and  the  creations  of 
imagination. 

Under  the  concept  of  curriculum  we  are  to  think  of  the  pupil 
as  moving  thus  through  social  experiences;  of  these  experiences 
as  arising  in  active  dealings  with  real  situations  of  the  present; 
as  including  the  rise  of  intelligent  social  purposes ;  as  coming  in 
a  prearranged  order  that  is  governed  by  the  growth  of  the  pupil's 
social  capacities,  and  as  including  human  and  divine  fellowship 
in  a  single  whole.  Fundamentally,  then,  the  curriculum  is  a 
com-se  of  living,  not  a  course  in  supposed  preliminaries  to  real 
life. 

The  pre-social  view  of  the  curriculum.  Before  going  on  to 
further  exposition  of  the  implications  of  such  a  socialized  curric- 
ulum, let  us  pause  to  realize  just  where  the  defects  lay  in  the 
conception  that  prevailed  in  the  church's  educational  yester- 
day. Here  is  a  wee  book  entitled  Our  Daily  Guide,  or  Wise 
Words  for  Young  Disciples,^  which  consists  of  a  text  of  Scripture 

1  Published  by  T.  Nelson  and  Sons.  It  has  been  in  circulation  recently, 
I  believe,  and  very  possibly  is  still  on  the  market. 


THE  CURRICULUM  99 

and  a  meditation  for  each  day  of  the  year.  "  Enter  not  into  the 
path  of  the  wicked,"  reads  one  of  the  Scripture  selections,  and 
the  meditation  attached  to  it  runs  thus: 

"Why  should  I  join  with  those  in  play 
In  whom  I've  no  delight; 
Who  curse  and  swear,  but  never  pray. 
Who  call  ill  names  and  fight?" 

Associated  with  the  command,  "Remember  the  Sabbath  day, 
to  keep  it  holy,"  is  this  resolution: 

"I'll  leave  my  sport  to  read  and  pray, 
And  so  prepare  for  heaven; 
Oh,  may  I  love  this  blessed  day, 
The  best  of  all  the  seven." 

A  third  specimen  is  this:  "The  dead  were  judged  out  of  those 
things  which  were  written  in  the  books,  according  to  their 
works." 

"Then  let  me  always  watch  my  lips. 
Lest  I  be  struck  to  death  and  hell; 
Since  God  a  book  of  reckoning  keeps 
For  every  lie  that  children  tell." 

We  are  accustomed  to  dismiss  documents  like  this  with  a 
comment  upon  their  dreadful  theology.  But  something  more 
is  revealed,  even  the  affinity  of  individualistic  religion,  with  its 
worship  of  an  incompletely  socialized  god,  for  an  educational 
method  that  consists  in  telling  and  commanding,  but  not  in  the 
growth  of  motives.  The  method,  as  well  as  the  content, 
isolates  the  pupil  from  his  fellows  and  from  divine  fellowship. 
The  last  thing  thought  of  here  is  that  a  child  might  appreciate 
love  or  justice  or  real  fellowship  of  any  kind. 

How  ingrained  the  individualistic  notion  of  teaching  was, 
how  mechanical  were  the  methods  to  which  it  led,  and  how 
remote  it  was  from  the  pupil's  real  life,  may  be  seen  from  the 


100  THE  CURRICULUM 

following  questions  and  "applications,"  which  are  quoted  from 
nineteenth-century  question-books  for  use  in  the  Sunday  school. 

Date,  1832.  Lesson  material:  Paul  and  Silas  at  Thessalonica 
and  Berea  (Acts  xvii,  1-16).  "It  was  Paul's  habit  to  attend  pub- 
lic worship,  ver.  2; — learn,  That  wherever  we  are,  it  is  our  duty 
to  do  the  same,  nothing  can  excuse  it,  but  sickness,  or  some  un- 
avoidable calamity."  .  .  .  "Paul  reasoned  with  the  Jews,  out  of 
the  Scriptures,  ver.  2; — learn,  That  the  Scriptures  are  the  only 
sources  from  which  we  can  draw  correct  and  weighty  arguments." 
.  .  .  "Some  of  them  who  heard  Paul  believed,  ver.  4; — ^learn, 
That  truth  affects  different  persons  differently."  ...  It  is 
pleasant  to  record  that  this  dreariness  is  not  altogether  unre- 
lieved by  references  to  matters  that  really  concern  children. 
Thus,  when  the  text-book  reaches  the  story  of  the  shipwreck,  we 
read:  "Many  were  saved  by  swimming,  ver.  43; — ^learn.  That  it  is 
useful  to  learn  to  swim;  our  own  lives,  under  God,  may  some- 
times be  indebted  to  it;  and,  besides  this,  if  we  know  how  to  swim, 
we  may  assist  others."  ^ 

Date,  1845.  A  whole  lesson  is  given  to  the  two  verses,  Matthew 
xiii,  51  and  52.     A  few  of  the  questions  are  as  follows: 

"12.  How  should  children  treat  their  religious  teachers?  Heb. 
xiii,  7,  17;  I  Thes.  v,  13. 

13.  What  danger  is  there  in  refusing  to  receive  instruction? 
Mat.  X,  14,  15;  Pr.  v,  23. 

15.  Why  should  you  desire  to  be  taught  in  the  truths  of  the 
Gospel?    IITim.  iii,  15. 

16.  What  is  your  duty  in  the  Sabbath  school?" 

In  a  lesson  on  "The  Barren  Fig  Tree,"  questions  like  this  are 
asked:  "What  divine  attribute  is  exhibited  in  granting  to  all 
persons  a  sufficient  reason,  and  all  necessary  means  of  grace?" 
and  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  is  pointed  with,  "To  what 
great  end  should  all  the  blessmgs  of  providence  and  grace  be  de- 
voted?" ^ 

1  A  Help  to  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  (Philadelphia:  American  Sunday  School 
Union,  1832). 

2  J.  A.  Albro,  Scripture  Questions,  vol.  VII,  On  the  Parables  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament. Part  I :  For  the  Younger  Scholars  (Massachusetts  Sabbath  School  So- 
ciety, Boston,  1845). 


THE  CURRICULUM  101 

Date,  1862.  Here  are  fifty  lessons  on  the  books  of  Joshua  and 
Judges  alone.  One  lesson  is  given  to  Caleb's  inheritance,  another 
to  Judah's  inheritance,  and  so  on.  The  lesson  on  the  inheritance 
of  the  Levites  occasions  these  "Practical  Questions":  "Where 
in  this  lesson  do  we  learn,  that:  The  living  of  the  ministry  is  not 
often  so  great  as  to  tempt  men  into  it  for  the  sake  of  the  compensa- 
tion ?  It  is  the  will  of  God  that  the  ministry  be  comfortably  sup- 
ported? I  Cor.  ix,  13,  14.  This  support  cannot  be  withheld 
without  displeasing  God?  ...  It  is  for  the  convenience  of  the 
ministry  and  the  good  of  the  people  that  they  live  near  the  sanc- 
tuary in  which  they  minister  ?  "  ^ 

Date,  1884.  "What  have  I  learned  ?  "  is  asked  in  connection  with 
a  lesson  on  The  Thessalonians  and  Bereans  (Acts  xvii,  1-14),  and 
the  answer  is  given  as  follows: 

"1.  That  the  Scriptures  tell  us  what  we  are  to  believe  and  what 
we  are  to  do. 

2.  That  it  is  ignoble  to  reject  and  oppose  the  Scriptures. 

3.  That  it  is  noble  to  receive  and  study  the  Scriptures. 

4.  That  we  should  search  the  Scriptures  with  earnest  desire 

to  find  out  just  what  they  teach. 

5.  That  if  we  thus  study  the  Scriptures  we  will  be  led  into  the 

truth."  2 
Date,  1894.     "Practical  Lessons  Learned"  from  the  story  of 
Cain  and  Abel  are  as  follows: 
"1.  We  should  bring  om*  best  gifts  to  God. 

2.  We  should  offer  them  in  faith  in  Christ. 

3.  We  should  beware  of  envy,  jealousy,  and  anger. 

4.  Passion  in  heart  leads  to  sin  in  life. 

5.  We  should  seek  pardon  through  Christ,  the  only  Savior."  ^ 

What  a  valley  of  dry  bones  is  this !  How  unreligious  it 
is !  The  reform  of  the  curriculum  that  set  in  early  in  the 
present  century  was  fundamentally  a  religious  reform.  It 
was  an  attempt  to  remove  paraphernalia,  mistakenly  supposed 
to  be  educational,  that  had  been  interposed  between  the  child 
and  religion.  The  spirit  of  the  new  movement  is  dominated 
by  faith  in  the  possibility  of  child  religion  and  of  growth  in 

1  John  Todd,  A  Question  Book  embracing  Books  of  Joshua  and  Judges  for 
Sabbath  Schools  and  Bible  Classes  (Massachusetts  Sabbath  School  Society, 
Boston,  1862). 

2  Westminster  Question  Book,  1884. 

•  Westminster  Question  Book  for  Teachers  and  Older  Scholars,  1894. 


102  THE  CURRICULUM 

religion.  Let  us  have  religion  itself,  it  says,  not  these  deaden- 
ing reiterations  about  it;  let  us  help  children  to  be  Christian 
now,  each  in  his  personal  world,  however  narrow  it  may  be,  and 
let  us  understand  that  herein  the  teaching  of  religion  con- 
sists. This  is  the  direction  in  which  the  reform  of  religious 
education  is  going.  Many  steps  will  have  to  be  taken  before 
our  courses  of  talk  about  religion  are  wholly  transformed  into 
courses  in  religious  living,  we  may  be  sure.  Therefore  let  us 
go  a  little  farther  into  the  theory  of  the  matter. 

The  primary  "content  of  the  curriculum"  is  to  be  found 
in  present  relations  and  interactions  between  persons.  The 
curriculum,  we  have  agreed,  is  to  be  a  scheme  of  growth  in 
social  motives  that  are  actually  in  operation  as  the  pupil  goes 
along.  The  essence  of  teaching,  then,  will  lie  in  leading  the 
pupil  to  make  experiments  in  social  living  whereby  he  shall 
know  for  himself,  not  merely  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear,  the 
meaning  and  the  validity  of  the  ancient  law  of  love  which  is 
also  the  law  of  justice.  With  children  as  with  adults  the  doing 
of  God's  will  is  the  true  way  to  insight.  How,  then,  can  the 
pupil  be  led  to  make  experiments  in  the  organization  of  his 
little  social  world  upon  the  principle  of  good  will  and  justice? 
Not  by  the  old  method  of  telling  and  commanding,  but  pri- 
marily through  the  attraction  that  he  finds  in  persons  who 
already  live  socially  in  his  own  environment.  It  is  "living 
epistles, "  known  and  read  in  family,  church,  or  Sunday  school 
that  first  make  Christian  fellowship  a  reality  to  him.  This 
initial,  pleasurable  experience  is  what  produces  the  momentum 
for  carrying  the  principle  of  fellowship  into  other  groups.  In 
order  to  lift  this  process  above  mere  imitation,  mere  good- 
natured  drift,  which  lacks  aggressiveness  and  power  of  achieve- 
ment in  difficult  situations,  the  pupil's  attention  must  be  turned 
to  these  situations  so  that  he  shall  discriminate  differences, 
recognize  problems,  and  see  causal  relations.  That  is,  to  study 
"the  way"  is  primarily  to  notice  the  differences  that  exist  here 
and  now  between  social  relations  that  are  governed  by  active 
love  and  those  that  are  not  thus  governed. 

This  proposition  does  not  ignore  or  minimize  the  significance 


THE  CURRICULUM  103 

of  historical  material,  but  points,  rather,  to  the  vital,  experiential 
way  of  using  it.  How,  indeed,  can  the  past  be  anything  to  us 
but  a  "dead  past"  until  we  discover  by  our  own  experiments 
that  there  is  continuity  between  the  living  and  the  dead?  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  Bible,  even  parts  of  it  that  quiver  with 
imperishable  human  interest,  are  to-day  dead  and  inert  things 
to  multitudes  because  their  approach  was  that  of  the  old- 
fashioned  curriculum.  The  very  attempt  to  exalt  the  Bible 
devitalized  it,  concealed  it,  by  making  it  a  thing  per  se,  to  be 
first  known  apart  from  experience  and  only  afterward  applied 
in  experience.  The  sparkle  of  its  high  lights,  and  the  gloom  of 
its  shadows  were  missed  alike,  because  it  was  all  there  merely 
to  be  learned,  all  on  a  dead  level.  Similar  waste  of  precious 
power  for  living  will  always  occur  when  "curriculum"  means 
facing  the  pupil  toward  the  far-away,  the  inexperienced,  instead 
of  toward  present  demonstrations  of  the  meaning  and  the 
power  of  love.  The  word  that  gives  life  is  always  that  which 
is  made  flesh,  and  dwells  among  men.  "I  in  them,  and  thou 
in  me,  that  they  may  be  perfected  into  one;  that  the  world 
may  know  that  thou  didst  send  me,  and  lovedst  them,  even 
as  thou  lovedst  me." 

When  we  thus  transform  the  curriculum  into  a  graded  series  "] 
of  experiments  in  social  living,  making  the  present  relations 
and  interactions  between  persons  the  primary  objects  of  study, 
not  only  shall  we  vitalize  the  parts  of  history  that  are  of  real 
religious  importance,  we  shall  also  have  a  corrective  for  the 
present  abstractness  of  much  of  our  teaching.  A  notion  is 
abroad  that  almost  identifies  the  teaching  of  morals  and  re- 
ligion with  inducing  pupils  to  analyze  qualities  of  character 
or  to  discriminate  the  virtues  one  from  another.  "What  sort 
of  man  was  Abraham?"  asks  the  teacher,  and  the  pupil  replies: 
"He  was  a  man  of  faith,"  or  "He  was  generous."  Sometimes 
the  questions  run :  "  What  do  we  call  a  man  who  conducts  him- 
self in  this  way?  Yes,  we  call  him  generous,"  etc.,  etc.  Ex- 
tended plans  have  been  made  for  moving  on  from  one  such 
quality  or  virtue  to  another  until  a  whole  galaxy  of  virtues  has 
been  telescopically  viewed  and  mapped. 


104  THE  CURRICULUM 

We  need  not  deny  all  value  to  such  study.  The  pupil's 
imaginative  contact  with  good  men  is  not  likely  to  be  altogether 
useless,  and  the  acquisition  of  an  ethical  vocabulary  is  cer- 
tainly desirable.  Yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  really  important 
thing  about  Abraham  is  his  contribution  to  a  certain  social- 
religious  movement.  The  American  boy  who  moves  in  imagina- 
tion with  Abraham  should  move  with  him  toward  defined 
social  objectives,  should  be  made  to  realize  the  difference  that 
the  life  of  the  patriarch  made  for  other  persons.  Studying 
virtues  is  not  the  same  as  studying  men  in  their  social  relations. 
We  may  glorify  a  virtue  at  the  very  moment  that  we  forget  men. 

Dissecting  virtues,  moreover,  does  not  necessarily  make 
them  attractive,  even  in  their  abstractness.  Some  inkling  of 
further  need  is  revealed  in  questions  like  these :  "  What  do  you 
admire  in  Abraham?"  and  "Which  is  your  favorite  character 
among  all  those  that  we  have  studied  this  quarter,  and  why?" 
Even  if  a  virtue  is  made  attractive,  toward  what,  in  terms 
of  concrete  living,  is  the  pupil  drawn?  Suppose  that  we  have 
produced  admiration  for  generosity;  there  remains  the  question: 
In  what  way  have  we  modified  the  pupil's  purposes  ?  Have  we 
merely  caused  him  to  desire  a  share  in  the  praise  that  is  due  to 
the  generous?  The  desire  to  be  "good"  may  be  a  subtle  form 
of  self-seeking.  The  desires  and  purposes  that  are  worth  awak- 
ening are  those  that  consciously  connect  others  with  oneself 
in  some  scheme  of  objective  good,  such  as  welfare,  justice,  or  a 
broader  fellowship. 

As  long  as  one  keeps  one's  attention  upon  inner  and  private 
qualities,  instead  of  keeping  it  upon  the  effects  of  this  or  that 
conduct  upon  specific  human  beings,  one  can  escape  the  sense 
of  responsibility  for  the  social  order  of  which  one  is  a  member. 
Who  does  not  know  that  fine  personal  qualities  may  be  wide- 
spread in  a  socially  lethargic  community  or  church?  When 
has  "good  man"  had  the  connotation  of  caring  for  even  rudi- 
mentary justice  ?  A  community  in  which,  in  spite  of  an  abun- 
dant food-supply,  many  children  lack  sufficient  nourishment 
to  enable  them  to  do  their  school  work  may  contain  any  num- 
ber of  kindly,  comfortable  citizens  to  whom  such  a  glaring  in- 


THE  CURRICULUM  105 

justice  never  comes  home  as  having  anything  to  do  with  their 
character.  They  are  "good"  men,  they  have  "virtues"  many 
and  genuine,  they  are  not  hypocrites;  yet  something  funda- 
mental is  lacking.  This  lack  will  not  be  made  good  by  adding 
another  "virtue"  to  their  private  stock.  The  whole  method 
of  their  ethical  thinking  must  be  reconstructed.  They  must 
approach  duty  by  a  different  route.  The  question  of  con- 
science should  be:  What  persons  are  affected  by  my  acts,  or  by 
my  failures  to  act,  and  how  are  they  affected  ?  I  am  a  part  of 
a  system  of  ethical  nerves  that  reaches  every  member  of  the 
community,  and  binds  all  into  an  interdependent  whole. 

It  requires  no  great  acuity  of  vision,  but  only  pausing  and 
looking,  to  see  that  economic  interdependence  is  at  the  same 
time  ethical  relatedness.  In  every  bargain  that  I  make,  in 
every  article  that  I  use  or  consume,  I  traffic  in  human  energies 
as  well  as  in  things,  I  relate  myself  to  the  health  and  happiness 
of  men  and  women  whom  I  have  never  seen,  I  take  part  in 
making  their  children  what  they  become.  To  assume  full  re- 
sponsibility for  these  acts  of  mine,  to  form  a  habit  of  seeing  so- 
ciety as  it  is,  and  of  tracing  social  causes  and  effects,  and  to 
think  my  very  own  moral  life  in  community  terms — these  are 
the  rudiments  of  an  awakened,  mature  Christian  conscience. 
The  road  toward  such  maturity  is,  obviously,  training  in  analysis 
and  in  appreciation  of  human  life  in  its  present  interrelated- 
ness,  and  practice  in  making  human  relations  those  of  a  genuine 
fellowship.^ 

The  changing  social  situations  incident  to  the  pupil's 
growth,  with  their  inevitable  problems  of  social  adjustment, 
furnish  a  basis  for  the  order  and  the  use  of  the  material. 
The  social  life  of  a  child  begins  in  a  narrow  circle,  widens  into 
larger  and  larger  circles,  and  becomes  a  complex  of  interpene- 
trating circles.  What  but  this  movement  of  social  enlarge- 
ment and  complication  could  determine  the  order  of  the  ma-  - 
terial  in  a  really  socialized  curriculum?  Family  life,  play  life, 
school  life,  civic  life,  occupation,  marriage — here  is  a  progressive 

1  The  psychological  phase  of  this  matter  will  be  discussed  more  at  length  in 
Chapter  XIV. 


106  THE   CURRICULUM 

order  that  is  also  a  natural  social  order.  A  brief  analysis  of 
the  educational  problems  presented  by  one  or  two  of  these  situa- 
tions will  serve  to  make  clear  the  principle  of  arrangement  and 
of  use. 

Under  normal  conditions  a  child  begins  his  social  experi- 
ence in  a  family.  Here  parental  love,  starting  in  instinct, 
but  going  on  to  reflective  devotion,  becomes  the  first  revela- 
tion of  the  law  of  love.  It  does  so  by  the  utterly  concrete 
method  of  attaching  the  child,  by  means  of  his  pleasures,  to 
his  parents  and  to  the  other  members  of  the  household.  Here 
is  presented  the  first  material  for  systematic  religious  educa- 
tion. The  objects  for  study  are  father  and  mother,  the  other 
children,  the  domestic  helpers,  and  the  purveyors  to  the  fam- 
ily's needs,  in  their  respective  activities  as  these  affect  the  mu- 
tual happiness.  The  inclusion  of  the  divine  Father  in  this 
group  comes  naturally  as  expressing  a  fellowship  of  obedience 
in  which  the  older  and  the  younger  share.  In  a  group  in  which 
the  full  enfranchisement  of  some  of  the  members  is  not  yet 
possible,  there  is  danger  of  undemocratic  rule  and  undemocratic 
subjection.  The  common  Fatherhood  here  serves  as  a  democ- 
ratizing principle.  It  is  to  be  referred  to  and  wrought  into 
the  child's  daily  consciousness,  not  as  an  importation  from 
outside  the  daily  family  life,  not  as  an  individual  possession  of 
the  child,  or  as  an  imposition  upon  his  will,  but  as  adding  rich 
meaning  to  "our"  in  "our  family." 

The  child's  life  in  the  family  extends  outward  into  play 
groups  of  members  of  various  families.  In  a  short  time  the 
play  group  buds  off  and  becomes  an  almost  autonomous  social 
life  of  children  with  children.  Games  and  plays  are  handed 
down  from  one  such  group  to  another  for  centuries  without 
plan,  or  record,  or  adult  participation.  With  the  games  go 
codes  of  conduct.  Rather,  the  rules  of  each  game  do  of  them- 
selves prescribe  one  or  another  sort  of  self-controlled  act  in 
the  interest  of  co-operation,  and  not  seldom  penalties  for  non- 
co-operation. 

Moreover,  children  erect  standards,  sometimes  but  not  al- 
ways unreflectively,  for  the  conduct  that  is  due  from  them- 


THE  CURRICULUM  107 

selves  to  various  classes  of  persons.  There  are  standards  with 
respect  to  competitors  in  games  as  compared  with  team-mates;* 
strange  children  as  contrasted  with  acquaintances;  children  of 
a  different  economic  "class'';  older  children  and  younger 
ones;  the  school-teacher ;2  the  janitor;  the  street-car  conduc- 
tor ;3  the  policeman;  persons  of  other  nationalities;^  and  per- 
sons occupying  different  positions  in  the  industrial  scale,  as 
domestic  "servants,"  "common"  laborers,  and  capitalists. 
We  adults  often  fail  to  realize  that  in  the  child  world  a  child 
public  opinion  sustains  and  even  enforces  these  standards. 
Here  a  child  finds  social  reality.  Compared  with  it  the  advice 
of  an  adult  is  likely  to  seem  cold,  unreal,  unappreciative. 

We  cannot  deal  adequately  with  this  child  society  by  merely 
proclaiming  better  standards,  or  by  appending  prohibitions  and 
penalties  to  the  proclamation.  Rather,  through  our  fellowship 
with  children  we  must  help  child  society  to  find  its  own  possi- 
bilities of  greater  happiness.  Children's  codes  will  not  be  the 
same  as  those  of  Christian  maturity,  in  any  case,  for  the  range 
of  human  relations  that  can  be  attended  to,  and  the  range  of 


»  Ask  boys  who  are  competing  in  running  races  what  they  think  of  starting 
ahead  of  the  pistol.  You  are  likely  to  find,  as  I  have  done,  approval  of  such 
evasion  of  rules  provided  only  that  one  can  succeed  in  it. 

2 1  know  of  a  secondary  school  in  which  at  one  time  the  maxim,  "A  Ue  to 
the  faculty  is  not  a  lie,"  expressed  a  common  attitude  of  the  boys,  even  of  the 
more  serious  minded  ones.  Even  in  a  well  managed  elementary  school  grade 
steps  have  been  necessary  to  prevent  pupils  from  altering  report-cards  sent  to 
parents — "raising"  them  as  a  forger  raises  a  check.  The  point  of  these 
instances  is  not  the  badness  of  children,  but  only  their  constant  tendency  to 
form  standards  and  a  pubUc  opinion  of  their  own  upon  the  basis  of  their  own 
too  narrow  experience.  What  the  teacher  has  to  do  is  to  enlarge  the  basis 
for  the  children's  judgment  upon  social  relations. 

3  Using  one's  wits  to  get  something  for  nothing  has  the  attraction  of  ad- 
venture, of  contest,  and  of  conquest.  Boys,  at  least,  trade  and  bargain 
with  one  another  with  a  fierceness  of  cupidity,  and  sometimes  with  a  trickl- 
ness,  that  represent  in  miniature  some  features  of  their  elders'  system  of 
competitive  profit  getting.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  make  a  child  realize 
that  cheating  an  impersonal  entity  like  a  street-railroad  corporation  is  on  the 
level  of  plain  steaUng. 

*  Race  prejudices  on  the  part  of  adults  find  a  fruitful  soil  in  the  child  mind, 
which  is  struck  by  differences  in  costimie,  speech,  and  manner,  rather  than 
by  the  less  obvious,  underlying  identities  of  human  natm-e.  One  of  the 
fine,  and  like^vise  pressing  tasks  of  Christian  teachers  in  many  of  our  centres 
of  population  is  to  help  children  who  already  look  down  upon  "sheenies" 
and  "dagoes"  (the  latest  term,  I  believe,  is  "guineas")  to  discover  the  fine 
human  quahties  that  these  races  are  contributing  to  our  American  Life. 


108  THE  CURRICULUM 

possible  adjustment  acts,  change  with  growing  years.  Never- 
theless, within  the  range  of  childish  capacities,  immense  dif- 
ferences of  code  are  possible,  most  important  shifts  in  social 
pleasures.  Here,  precisely,  is  where  religious  education  has 
its  opportunity  and  its  call.  Its  central  function  will  be  to 
stimulate  social  experiments  of  certain  kinds  within  the  chil- 
dren's own  world — experiments  in  which  situations  will  be 
analyzed  as  they  would  not  be  without  adult  help,  in  which 
acquaintance  of  children  with  one  another  will  be  deepened, 
and  in  which  thereby  the  joys  of  co-operation,  helpfulness,  fair 
play,  and  justice  will  be  multiplied.^ 

These  two  examples,  the  family  group  and  the  play  group, 
are  sufficient  to  make  clear  how  the  grades  or  other  divisions 
of  a  socialized  curriculum  can  grow  directly  out  of  the  pupil's 
expanding  social  experience.  It  is  not  necessary  to  continue 
this  analysis  into  the  child's  school  life,  with  its  fresh  prob- 
lems of  work,  of  systematized  co-operation,  and  of  authority; 
nor  into  his  growing  contacts  with  the  political,  industrial, 
commercial,  philanthropic,  and  cultural  institutions  of  the  com- 
munity; nor  into  his  relations  to  a  life-occupation,  nor  into  his 
preparation  for  marriage.  It  is,  however,  important  to  notice 
that  a  progressive  course  in  social  living  takes  the  form,  as  far 
as  instruction  is  concerned,  of  a  series  of  problems  to  be  solved 
— problems,  let  it  be  noted,  not  imported  into  the  child's  world 
by  the  teacher,  but  already  in  the  enterprises  and  the  joys  and 
sorrows  of  childhood.  Let  it  be  noted,  finally,  that  under 
this  conception  of  education  the  teacher  does  not  give  the 
pupils  solutions  for  their  problems,  but  induces  the  pupils  to 
analyze  and  experiment  so  that  they  reach  convictions  of  their 
very  own. 

How  the  "social  situation"  order  of  the  curriculum  differs 
from  others.  The  significance  of  this  new  theory  of  the  curric- 
ulum may  be  pointed  still  further  by  a  brief  resume  of  other 
principles,  either  practised  or  proposed,  for  the  arrangement  of 
material. 

1  Compare  what  was  said  in  Chapter  IV  concerning  the  necessity  of  help- 
ing children  out  of  the  crowd  type  of  association  into  the  deUberative  type. 


THE  CURRICULUM  109 

(1)  The  part-and-whole  arrangement,  whereby  the  Bible  or 
the  catechism  is  simply  cut  up  into  a  number  of  parts  to  corre- 
spond with  certain  periods  of  time,  or  an  abbreviated  and  sim- 
plified form  (as  of  the  commandments  or  of  the  catechism) 
precedes  the  complete  one. 

(2)  The  historical  arrangement,  whereby  the  pupil  first  thinks 
about  earlier  times,  then  about  later  ones,  and  at  last  arrives — 
if,  indeed,  he  ever  does  arrive — at  his  own  times. 

(3)  The  supposedly  psychological  arrangement,  whereby  spon- 
taneous interests  that  are  believed  to  arise  in  a  serial  order 
are  to  have  each  its  own  kind  of  food  in  its  season.  In  a  later 
chapter  we  shall  have  to  touch  upon  the  most  extreme  form  of 
this  theory,  which  bases  the  order  of  the  material  upon  the  re- 
capitulation doctrine  of  mental  growth.^  Here  we  may  point 
out  that  in  whatever  form  the  supposedly  psychological  ar- 
rangement appears  it  misses  or  underrates  an  important  factor 
in  children's  interests.  The  fact  that  some  instincts  ripen  later 
than  others  does  bring  it  to  pass,  indeed,  that  spontaneous 
attention  shifts  in  certain  matters  by  reason  of  a  purely  in- 
ternal impulsion.  It  is  true,  too,  that  the  mere  presence  of 
powers  not  yet  fully  employed  is  a  determining  factor. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  children's  characteristic  interests 
are  not,  on  the  whole,  spontaneous  demands  for  this  or  that 
object  or  for  this  or  that  result,  but  rather  for  participation  in 
processes  of  certain  types.  One  of  the  simplest  examples  is  the 
interest  that  is  supposed  to  underlie  the  voracious  hearing  and 
reading  of  blood-and-thunder  tales.  Superficial  observation 
may  make  it  appear  that  suffering  and  cruelty  as  such  are  at- 
tractive, or  that  strength  applied  to  immoral  pnds  is  what  the 
child  most  likes  to  contemplate,  whereas  the  thing  that  he  is 
really  after  is  imaginative  participation  in  action  that  involves 
rapid  changes,  stirring  contrasts,  and  simple  motives,  with 
the  sense  of  living  that  such  action  brings.  The  action  may  be 
cruel  or  heroic,  and  the  motive  and  outcome  may  be  noble  or 
base ;  the  interest  is  there  in  either  case. 

Moreover,  the  particular  material  that  attracts  the  child's 

1  See  Chapter  XII. 


no  THE  CURRICULUM 

attention,  the  particular  application  of  his  impulses  toward 
participation,  is  determined  in  each  case  in  large  measure  by 
what  the  habitual  environment  offers,  and  by  the  kinds  of 
active,  overt  participation  that  are  open  to  him.  Here,  for 
example,  is  an  only  child  who  has  had  little  contact  with  other 
children.  When  he  is  brought  to  the  kindergarten  he  shrinks 
at  first  from  the  very  objects  and  occupations  that  fascinate 
the  other  children.  Again,  keep  a  child  amused  by  toys  that 
perform  in  his  presence  while  he  remains  little  more  than  a 
spectator,  and  you  create  demands,  interests,  of  a  particular 
kind;  pursue  the  opposite  policy  from  the  beginning,  provid- 
ing him  with  material  for  self-expression,  construction,  and 
initiative,  and  you  create  an  opposite  set  of  interests.  The 
truth  is  that  there  is  no  serial  order  of  underived  interests  upon 
which  a  curriculum  could  be  organized.  We  must  conform, 
rather,  to  the  serial  order  of  situations  that  develop  with  growth, 
striving  always  to  develop  interests,  not  merely  to  feed  those  that 
happen  to  be  present  already. 

(4)  The  ecclesiastical  arrangement,  whereby  religious  educa- 
tion is  made  to  consist  in  a  gradual  initiation  into  the  worship, 
the  activities,  and  the  beliefs  of  the  church,  and  into  full  con- 
formity to  its  authority.  This  is  like  the  part-and-whole  prin- 
ciple of  arrangement  except  that  active  participation  in  insti- 
tutional life  is  added  to  "learning  about."  It  is  like  the 
"social  situation"  principle  in  that  it  causes  the  pupil  to  attend 
to  persons  and  what  they  do,  and  to  take  for  himself  a  part  in 
the  doing.  It  is  unlike  it  in  two  respects :  It  induces  the  child 
to  conform  rather  than  to  experiment,  and  it  introduces  him  to 
ready-made  solutions  instead  of  introducing  him  to  problems. 
There  is  likewise  a  difference,  of  emphasis  at  least,  with  respect 
to  the  relation  of  the  pupil's  fellowship  in  the  church  to  his 
fellowships  in  other  groups.  This  point  is  of  so  great  import 
that  we  must  pause  to  consider  it  for  a  moment. 

The  place  of  the  church  in  a  curriculum  of  social  living. 
If  the  content  of  the  curriculum  is  to  consist  of  the  relations 
between  persons  in  a  series  of  social  situations — family,  play 
group,  school,  etc. — where,  it  may  be  asked,  does  the  church 


THE  CURRICULUM  111 

group  come  in  ?  Where  does  the  curriculum  introduce  the  child 
to  the  sacred  fellowship  and  the  common  worship  of  the  avowed 
disciples  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

The  main  alternatives  that  need  to  be  considered  may  be 
indicated  by  these  questions:  Shall  the  child's  ecclesiastical 
experience  be  treated  as  a  particular  social  sphere  co-ordinate 
with  others,  as  the  family  and  the  state,  but  having  a  different 
principle  of  fellowship  or  a  different  set  of  problems  to  work 
out;  or,  shall  the  child  experience  the  church  fellowship  as  a 
specially  earnest,  co-operative  effort  to  work  out  the  very  prob- 
lems that  arise  in  the  family  and  in  the  other  social  situations 
that  have  been  named?  Again,  shall  the  child  experience  the 
"sacred"  or  "set  apart"  as  something  inhering  in  the  church 
group  as  such  but  not  in  others;  or,  shall  he  experience  all  love, 
all  justice,  binding  men  together  anywhere,  as  the  sacred? 
Shall  his  initiation  into  common  worship  take  him  out  of  the 
social  consciousness  of  the  work  day  and  of  the  play  day  into 
a  new  and  separate  communion;  or,  shall  the  fellowship  of 
prayer  be  continuous  with  all  good  fellowships,  even  a  confirm- 
ing of  them  and  an  inspiration  within  them  ?  Where  shall  the 
child  be  taught  to  look  for  God  ? 

Underneath  all  these  chapters  on  the  new  religious  education 
is  a  particular  assumption.  It  has  been  vividly  phrased  by 
the  writer  of  the  First  Epistle  of  John:  "This  is  the  message 
that  ye  heard  from  the  beginning,  that  we  should  love  one 
another.  .  .  .  Love  is  of  God;  and  every  one  that  loveth  is 
begotten  of  God,  and  knoweth  God.  .  .  .  But  whoso  hath 
the  world's  goods,  and  beholdeth  his  brother  in  need,  and 
shutteth  up  his  compassion  from  him,  how  doth  the  love  of 
God  abide  in  him?" 

If  the  Christian  ideal  were  a  divine  autocracy,  or  a  divine- 
human  aristocracy,  then  indeed  it  could  promote  itself  by  mak- 
ing attractive  to  children  a  common  worship  that  by  its  solemn, 
majestic,  and  overawing  mysteries  should  seem  to  tower  above 
and  apart  from  the  associations  of  the  common  day.  If  the 
fellowship  of  the  avowed  disciples  of  Jesus  were  a  particular 
species  of  love,  and  not  just  plain,  unreserved  good  will,  then 


112  THE  CURRICULUM 

the  child*s  introduction  to  the  church  would  be,  indeed,  an  in- 
itiation into  a  society  of  the  peculiarly  good,  the  favorites  of 
heaven.  But  if  we  grant  that  the  fellowship  of  Christians  is 
rooted  in  a  kind  of  divine  love  that  desires  to  enfranchise 
every  man  into  democratic  society,  a  love  so  divine  that  it  knows 
no  favored  class  on  the  one  hand,  and  no  undivine  goodness  on 
the  other,  then  we  shall  induct  children  into  common  worship 
and  the  communion  within  the  church  as  a  heightened  conscious- 
ness of  what  we  are  about  in  our  every-day  social  relations. 
The  presence  of  God  will  be  made  manifest  in  united  prayer, 
not  as  something  done  in  a  church  building,  not  because  it  is 
uttered  by  a  privileged  person  or  group,  or  according  to  any 
formula,  but  because  the  content  of  it  brings  to  a  focus  the  so- 
cial problems  of  the  common  day,  and  gathers  together  the 
children's  powers  of  aspiration  after  the  good  will  that  is  the 
solution.  Where  is  God  ?  Wherever  a  mature  man  or  a  little 
child  faces  the  problem  of  the  mutual  adjustment  of  two  or 
more  human  lives  to  each  other,  there  he  meets  God. 

Love  that  is  so  divine  as  to  be  utterly  democratic  makes  a 
church  aspire  to  be,  not  so  much  a  superior  sort  of  society,  as 
an  exponent  of  society  in  the  large  as  the  very  dwelling  place 
of  God.  Ecclesiastical  ambition  now  runs,  not  toward  cen- 
tralization of  power  in  the  ecclesiastical  organization,  but 
toward  diffusion  of  the  light  of  love  through  the  whole  social 
complex.  The  church  itself  now  becomes  a  living  exegesis  of 
the  great  paradox  that  only  by  losing  our  life  do  we  gain  life. 
Such  a  church  will  be  quick  to  minister  to  any  human  need 
that  is  not  otherwise  provided  for — any  need,  from  food  to  fun, 
and  from  athletics  to  art — but  it  will  stimulate  the  family, 
the  school,  community  institutions,  and  the  state  to  take  upon 
themselves  every  social  function  that  they  are  adapted  to  per- 
form. 

The  church  of  the  spirit  of  love  seeks  thus  to  infuse  itself  into 
the  whole  social  body,  not  to  maintain  eternal  separateness 
therefrom.  It  does  not  find  a  competitor  in  any  philanthropic 
institution  that  efficiently  organizes  good  will.  It  does  not 
depreciate  as  merely  secular  the  social  enthusiasm  of  any  one 


THE  CURRICULUM  113 

who  loves  men  as  men,  for  God  so  loves  them.  It  does  not 
grow  apprehensive  lest  the  social  movement  should  substitute 
the  sacredness  of  humanity  for  the  sacredness  of  worship.  It 
is  apprehensive,  rather,  lest  men  may  not  hold  life  sacred 
enough,  may  not  love  deeply  enough  to  satisfy  divine  justice, 
may  not  make  the  happy  discovery  of  themselves  as  work- 
fellows  of  the  great  Lover  who  is  in  all  love,  may  never  know 
that  love  itself  is  worship. 

The  position  of  the  church  in  a  socialized  curriculum  is  that 
of  a  present  fellowship  that  runs  through  all  the  developins^ 
fellowships,  inspiring  them  to  fulfil  themselves,  and  urging  them 
on  toward  the  deep  love  of  men  that  is  also  the  conscious  wor- 
ship of  God. 

The  place  of  the  Bible  in  the  curriculum.  I  have  said,  in 
substance,  that  the  theory  of  the  curriculum  is  to  be  based 
squarely  upon  the  idea  of  incarnation — that  God  makes  him-  > 
self  known  to  us  in  concrete  human  life;  that  we  obey  him  and 
commune  with  him  in  any  and  every  brotherly  attitude  that 
we  take  toward  any  of  his  children,  and  that  this  experience 
of  God  does  not  occur  merely  once  or  twice  in  history,  but  con- 
tinuously. The  realization  of  God  on  the  part  of  the  prophets 
and  of  Jesus  is  transmitted  to  us  primarily  in  the  human  lives 
that  have  already  come  under  its  influence.  We  are  linked 
with  God  in  ancient  history  by  nothing  less  than  God  himself 
within  the  intervening  generations.  Life  is  continuous.  The 
generations  are  not  separated  from  one  another  like  the  banks 
of  a  stream  over  which  a  bridge  must  be  built.  No  non-living 
thing  could  communicate  the  divine  life  to  us,  but  only  this 
life  itself.  The  consequence  for  religious  education  is  that  j 
it  consists  primarily  in  the  awakening  of  religious  experience 
in  children  through  their  contacts  with  persons  who  already 
have  such  experience.  The  Bible  then  takes  its  place  as  a'"^ 
means  that  mightily  assists  in  promoting,  illuminating,  and 
confirming  these  contacts,  and  in  extending  the  Christian  fel-  ^ 
lowship  backward  to  Jesus  and  the  prophets,  and  forward 
toward  the  fulfilling  of  the  prophetic  ideals. 

From  of  old  it  has  been  a  custom  among  Christians  to  go 


114  THE  CURRICULUM 

to  the  Bible  for  specific  help  for  specific  needs.  Does  the 
shadow  of  death  menace  us?  We  turn  to  the  Twenty-third 
Psalm  or  to  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians.  Do 
the  uncertainties  of  life's  struggle  tempt  us  to  compromise 
with  evil?  The  sixth  of  Matthew  comes  to  our  aid.  Does 
our  prayer  life  require  refreshing?  We  restudy  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  Do  we  desire  to  think  straight  on  the  social  question  ? 
We  ponder  the  profoundly  simple  words  of  Jesus  and  of  the 
prophets  concerning  justice  and  brotherly  love.  In  short, 
we  take  our  start  from  needs  involved  in  our  present  situation, 
and  we  then  select  from  the  multitudinous  wealth  of  the  Scrip- 
tures the  part  that  gives  us  the  greatest  help. 

We  shall  discover  the  true  place  of  the  Bible  in  the  curricu- 
lum by  applying  to  childhood  the  same  principle  of  using  the 
Scriptures  in  the  interest  of  present  living.  If  the  curriculum 
is  fundamentally  a  course  in  Christian  living,  the  Bible  will  be 
used  at  each  turn  of  the  child's  experience  in  such  a  way  as 
to  help  him  with  the  particular  problem  that  is  then  upper- 
most. We  as  teachers  shall  then  select  for  the  child  just 
as  we  select  for  ourselves,  leaving  unconsidered  for  the  time 
anything  in  the  Bible  that  does  not  feed  the  pupil's  present  need. 
The  result  will  be  that  the  progressive  social  experience  of  the 
child  will  be  reflected  in  the  successive  passages  that  are  chosen, 
and  if  need  be  repeated  from  time  to  time.  That  is,  we  shall 
have  a  truly  graded  scheme  of  biblical  lessons.  It  will  begin 
with  stories  topically  arranged,  but  as  the  pupil's  outlook 
grows,  it  will  deal  with  whole  periods,  whole  books,  and  finally 
the  whole  movement  of  the  religious  consciousness  that  the 
Bible  reflects. 

On  precisely  the  same  principle  so-called  extra-biblical 
material  will  be  used  as  it  is  needed.  When  I  as  an  adult  Chris- 
tian meet  the  problem  of  how  large  my  missionary  contribution 
shall  be,  I  seek  information  concerning  the  missions  of  to-day. 
When  I  want  to  know  what  my  duty  is  with  respect  to  the 
liquor  traffic,  I  study  its  baleful  effects  .and  also  the  methods 
of  fighting  it.  When  the  preacher  asks  me  to  support  a  pro- 
posed child-labor  law,  I  want  him  to  give  me  the  facts  with 


THE  CURRICULUM  115 

regard  to  children  in  industry  and  witli  regard  to  the  laws  on 
the  subject.  It'  loyalty  to  the  church  is  in  questii)n,  T  nuist  know 
something  of  the  history  of  the  church,  something  of  its  actual 
position  in  present  society,  and  something  concerning  the  more 
eifective  forms  of  church  life.  This  is  the  way  that  we  adults 
study  to  be  Christian.  The  way  for  children  is  not  ditVerent  in 
principle  but  only  in  the  application.  Extra-biblical  material 
for  study  is  just  as  necessary  for  them  as  for  us  because  their 
problems,  like  our  own,  have  to  do  with  enterprises  and  adjust- 
ments concerning  which  the  Bible  gives  no  whit  of  information 
— missions  in  lands  unknown  in  ancient  times;  philanthropic  en- 
terprises under  conditions  and  by  methods  not  so  much  as  con- 
ceived of  by  any  biblical  writer;  social  adjustments  in  the 
home,  on  the  playground,  at  school,  in  the  choice  of  an  occu- 
pation, in  the  conduct  of  oner's  occupation,  in  the  use  of  the  bal- 
lot, which  must  be  studied  directly  if  they  are  to  be  understood 
at  all. 

Such  extra-biblical  factors  in  the  problems  of  Christian  living 
are  bound  to  have  a  large  place  in  the  socialized  curriculum. 
But  they  will  not  supplant  the  Hible,  or  derogate  from  its  unique- 
ness as  an  instrument  for  social  education.  For  the  Bible 
contains  a  body  of  social  literature  of  unique  power  for  the  stim- 
ulation and  criticism  of  social  motives  and  ideals.  It  is  in 
and  through  the  use  of  the  Bible  that  we  come  into  fellowship 
with  tlie  greatest  of  our  social  leaders,  meeting  God  in  them. 
No  mystical  introduction  to  the  Christ  who  dwells  in  the  heart 
of  every  believer  can  be  substituted  for  fellowship  with  the 
historical  Jesus  and  with  the  great  Old  Testament  charactei*s 
who  influenced  In's  own  social  education.  The  fellowship  of  a 
common  social  purpose  is,  indeed,  the  foundation  of  Chris- 
tian education,  and  this  foundation  is  laid  in  the  pupil's  present 
acquaintance  with  persons  in  whom  God's  presence  shines  out 
as  love.  But  this  fellowship,  this  social  experience,  can  be  I 
extended  by  imagination.  It  is  thus  extended  through  memory,  j^ 
for  how  often  does  one  become  better  acquainted  with  the  real 
character  of  a  loved  one  by  separation  from  him.  Similarly, 
imagination  extends  our  fellowship  to  persons  whom  we  have 


116  THE  CURRICULUM 

never  seen,  whether  they  are  separated  from  us  by  oceans  or 
by  centuries.     "Whom,  not  having  seen,  we  love." 

The  educative  power  of  such  imaginative  association  depends 
partly  upon  the  law  of  suggestion.  Merely  associating  with 
persons  of  positive  goodness  tends  to  habituate  us  to  the  ex- 
pectation of  goodness  in  ourselves.  Likewise  emotional  re- 
actions against  imagined  badness  can  have  a  part  in  forming 
habitual  attitudes.  But  this  is  only  atmosphere  or  background 
for  something  far  more  specific,  namely,  the  use  of  imagined 
persons,  events,  and  situations  in  the  analysis  of  present  issues 
and  of  universal  laws  of  living.  The  uniqueness  of  the  Bible 
as  a  source  of  material  for  social  education  lies,  in  large  measure, 
in  the  sharpness  with  which  it  presents  issues  without  abstract- 
ing them  from  persons  and  events.  Here  is  the  truth  of  life 
presented  in  the  form  of  life,  a  form  so  characteristically  drawn 
that  he  who  runs  perceives  the  ethical  meaning.  There  are 
many  biblical  tales  that  one  can  hardly  read  or  listen  to  in  a 
naive  manner  without,  in  the  very  act,  criticising  one's  own 
conduct.  There  are  aphorisms  and  formulae  without  number 
that  become  tools  for  mastering  our  own  experience. 

Nevertheless,  the  history  of  religious  education  shows  that 
even  this  magnificent  body  of  concrete  truth  can  be  so  taught 
as  to  seem  far  away  and  unrelated  to  us.  We  must  therefore 
assume,  on  this  ground  also,  the  necessity  of  the  living  teacher, 
and  of  art  in  teaching.  Thus  the  literary  material  of  the  curric- 
ulum finally  becomes,  not  something  per  se,  but  ideas  actually 
performing  their  function.  Material  and  method  become  in- 
dissolubly  one. 


PART  III 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  BACKGROUND   OF  A 
SOCIALIZED   RELIGIOUS   EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  SOCIAL  NATURE  OF  MAN 

The  problem  of  Part  III.  We  come  now  to  the  nature 
of  the  human  material  that  religious  education  undertakes  to 
modify.  What,  for  the  purpose  of  the  present  discussion,  is 
a  child?  That  is,  what  is  there  in  children  that  justifies  any 
expectation  that  they  will  make  a  favorable  response  to  the 
social  principles  of  the  Christian  religion?  Does  child  nature 
include  any  obstacle  to  such  response?  What  is  child  religion 
as  compared  with  the  religion  of  adults?  Are  there  any  laws 
of  growth  that  condition  a  child's  religious  experience?  Wliat 
sorts  of  situation,  controllable  by  the  educator,  are  most  con- 
ducive to  religious  growth  ?  And  what  is  the  process  whereby 
a  social  purpose  grows  mature  ? 

These  questions  are  different  from  the  ones  that  text-books 
for  Sunday-school  teachers  ordinarily  undertake  to  answer. 
Child  study  for  teachers  of  religion  abounds  in  discussions  of 
children's  imitativeness,  their  imagination,  their  memory, 
their  activity  and  changeability,  their  play,  their  constructive- 
ness;  all  of  which  is  important,  but  little  of  which  touches 
upon  the  religious  capacities  of  childhood.  It  fails  to  touch 
upon  these  capacities  because  it  concerns  the  general  form  of 
children's  reactions  rather  than  interests  and  motives.  As  a 
consequence,  a  teacher  who  understands  all  these  formal  char- 
acteristics of  children,  and  guides  the  teaching  process  in  the 
light  of  them,  may  nevertheless  appeal  to  either  social  or  in- 
dividualistic motives,  and  therefore  may  start  the  child  either 
well  or  ill.  Therefore,  with  our  eyes  upon  the  content  of  the 
Christian  purpose,  the  democracy  of  God,  we  must  go  on  to 
ask  what  capacities  children  have  for  being  interested  in  any 
such  thing,  or  for  responding  to  any  part  of  such  an  ideal. 

119 


120  HUMAN  NATURE 

Some  of  these  questions  have  already  been  touched  upon 
In  our  sketch  of  the  new  reHglous  education,  particularly  in 
Chapters  VII,  VIII,  and  IX.  The  general  conception  of  a 
child's  religious  progress  there  presented  is  that  of  the  con- 
tinuous achievement  of  intelligent  good  will  in  his  growing  social 
relationships,  and  the  enlargement  of  these  relationships  them- 
selves in  the  church  and  in  its  worship.  We  assumed  that 
children  respond  to  social  incentives,  and  that  worship  of  a 
Father  who  loves  us  can  be  a  vital  experience  in  childhood  as 
truly,  though  not  necessarily  In  the  same  degree  or  form,  as 
in  adulthood. 

These  assumptions  are  not  violent  ones.  Perhaps  they 
do  not  need  defense,  but  they  do  need  further  analysis  in  the 
interest  of  specific  control  of  particular  sorts  of  reaction.  Rel- 
atively simple  as  a  child's  interests  and  motives  are,  they  are 
nevertheless  sufficiently  complicated  to  make  the  understand- 
ing of  children,  and  skill  in  teaching  (as  distinguished  from 
knack)  something  of  an  achievement.  We  shall  presently  see 
some  evidence  of  the  ease  with  which  we  misinterpret  children, 
and  it  will  grow  increasingly  clear  that  the  misplacing  of  a  mo- 
tive in  teaching  is  a  most  serious  matter. 

What  is  meant  by  "  the  psychological  background  of  a  social- 
ized religious  education,"  then,  is  this:  The  social  and  the  anti- 
social impulses  of  a  child,  and  particularly  how  social  instincts 
can  grow  into  social  purposes  of  ideal  scope.  This  is  back- 
ground only.  If  middle  ground  and  foreground  also  were  to 
be  presented,  practically  the  whole  of  educational  psychology 
would  have  to  be  reviewed.  For  the  teaching  of  religion,  as 
of  anything  else,  involves  such  matters  as  sense-perception, 
imagination,  memory,  habit,  attention  and  interest,  judgment 
and  inference,  the  laws  of  transfer  and  the  laws  of  fatigue. 
For  topics  like  these  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  general  works 
on  educational  psychology. 

Instinct-factors  in  the  conduct  of  one  human  being  toward 
another.  By  Instinct  is  meant,  in  this  discussion,  any  readi- 
ness to  act  in  a  specific  way  in  a  particular  sort  of  situation  with- 
out having  learned  to  do  so,  or  (as  it  is  often  put)  the  first  time 


HUMAN  NATURE  121 

that  a  situation  of  the  sort  is  presented.  This  definition,  it 
will  be  noted,  refers  to  specific  kinds  of  action  rather  than  to 
broad  tendencies  in  either  the  race  or  the  individual.  There 
are  such  broad  tendencies.  The  evolution  of  the  race  exhibits 
movement  toward  refinement  in  various  directions,  and  toward 
the  organization  of  conduct  into  social  institutions  of  increas- 
ing scope.  Similarly,  growth  of  an  individual  mind  consists, 
in  large  measure,  in  the  achievement  of  organized  self-conscious- 
ness and  self-control.  These  tendencies  are  of  course  to  be 
included  in  the  concept  of  man's  social  nature.  They  will 
have  our  attention  in  subsequent  sections.  But  first  it  is  im- 
portant, for  the  purpose  of  effective  control  through  teaching, 
to  see  that  human  nature  is  not  merely  a  few  general  tendencies 
that  are  to  be  promoted  or  resisted  by  appealing  to  general 
motives,  but  also  a  vast  complex  of  readinesses  to  act  in  this 
or  that  specific  way  under  specific  conditions.  What  the 
teacher  has  to  do  is  to  secure  particular  social  reactions  and  to 
prevent  particular  antisocial  ones,  to  the  end  that  social  habits 
and  social  thinking  may  grow  with  the  pupil's  increasing  con- 
tacts with  his  fellows.  The  effectively  good  will  is  more  than 
a  benevolent  sentiment  toward  mankind  in  general;  it  is  also 
a  will  trained  to  meet  particular  human  situations. 

In  the  following  summary  of  instinct  factors  in  social  and 
anti-social  conduct  I  shall  follow  chiefly  Thorndike,  who  has 
carried  the  analysis  of  the  instincts  farther  than  any  other 
psychologist,  but  I  shall  subsequently  make  use  also  of  certain 
analyses  by  McDougall.  The  list  summarizes  factors  only, 
treating  each  one  in  its  simplicity  and  in  isolation,  and  without 
reference  at  this  point  to  the  integral  life  of  individual  self- 
control  or  of  social  organization.  We  are  to  notice,  as  it  were, 
certain  bones  of  the  human  skeleton,  rather  than  the  living 
body  performing  its  functions.^ 

» Even  if  limitations  of  space  permitted  me  to  describe  in  detail  the  situa- 
tion that  evokes  each  sort  of  response,  and  the  muscular  and  physiological 
features  of  each  response,  I  could  do  Uttle  more  than  reproduce  the  sub- 
stance of  Thorndike's  descriptions.  The  reader  is  advised  by  all  means  to 
read  them  for  himself.  See  E.  L.  Thorndike,  The  Original  Nature  of  Man 
(which  is  vol.  I  of  his  three-volume  Educational  Psychology).  New  York,  1913, 
pp.  52  /. ;    68-122. 


122  HUMAN  NATURE 

(1)  Simple  gregariousness,  or  pleasure  in  the  mere  presence 
of  other  members  of  the  species,  and  discomfort  in  their  absence. 

(2)  Special  interest  in  what  is  being  done  by  human  beings,  as 
distinguished  from  all  other  objects  in  the  environment. 

(3)  Wanting  to  be  noticed  by  other  human  beings. 

(4)  Craving  for  approval  from  other  human  beings,  and  discomfort 
from  their  disapproval,  whether  the  grounds  of  it  be  ethical  or  not. 

(5)  Approval  or  admiration  not  only  for  those  who  are  useful 
to  u^,  but  also  for  those  who  exhibit  strength,  daring,  or  beauty ;  and 
disapproval,  scorn,  or  disgust  for  persons  of  the  opposite  sorts,  even 
though  they  have  not  injured  us.  This  instinct  is  primarily  directed 
toward  qualities  that  are  important  for  savage  society,  but  the 
sphere  of  its  application  grows  with  the  growing  standards  of 
society.  Thus  it  is  that  moral  strength  (what  is  ''moral"  being 
determined  by  the  then  existing  standard)  is  an  object  of  instinc- 
tive admiration. 

(6)  Effort  to  master  others,  particularly  weaker  animuls  and  hu- 
man beings,  and  to  subdue  them  if  they  resist;  but  also  readiness  to 
submit  to  the  strong  or  self-assertive  individual.  Thorndike  classes 
instinctive  display  or  showing  off  as  a  partial  manifestation  of 
the  instinct  of  mastery,  and  shyness  as  a  partial  manifestation  of 
the  instinct  of  submission.  Both  are  prominent  in  courtship, 
but  they  play  a  part  also  in  much  other  conduct. 

(7)  Rivalry  (attempting  to  get  something  for  oneself  rather 
than  let  another  get  it),  greed  (getting  for  oneself  regardless  both 
of  the  need  of  others  and  of  oneself),  and  jealousy  (annoyance 
with,  and  perhaps  attack  upon,  another  who  receives  attention 
or  benefits  that  one  desires  for  oneself).   < 

(8)  Hunting.  Though  primarily  related  to  the  securing  of 
food,  the  hunting  instinct  does  not  stop  here,  but  goes  on  to  kill- 
ing for  sport,  mastering  and  tormenting  animals,  bullying  weaker 
human  beings,  callous  pursuit  of  persons  whom  we  dislike,  and 
some  forms  of  warfare. 

(9)  Anger  and  pugnacity.  The  primary  instinctive  response 
to  situations  like  being  physically  restrained,  thwarted,  or  attacked 
is  (unless  submission  intervenes)  struggling,  or  screaming,  or 
kicking,  or  striking  back,  or  counter-attack,  commonly  with  more 
or  less  of  the  emotional  commotion  called  anger.  Secondarily, 
pugnacity  applies  to  any  kind  of  thwarting,  as  in  argument,  and 
it  becomes  pleasiu'e  in  combat  as  such,  whether  with  weapons  or 
in  sport,  whether  with  muscles  or  with  wits. 


HUMAN  NATURE  123 

(10)  Sex  attraction.  The  social  significance  of  the  sex  instinct 
far  outruns  the  mere  perpetuation  of  the  species.  "It  is  true 
that  sex  attraction  as  such  does  not  seem  to  include  regard  for 
another's  interests;  nothing  can  be  more  ruthless  than  the  sex 
instinct,  in  some  of  its  manifestations,  at  least.  Yet  it  does  not 
generally  exist  'in  and  by  itself  in  the  human  species.  The  fixa- 
tion of  attention  upon  another,  the  vivid  realization  of  his  presence 
as  chis  particular  individual,  which  is  characteristic  of  sex  attrac- 
t/on,  has  an  unportant  consequence.  We  individualize  another 
by  Einfuhlung — that  is,  by  imaginative  putting  of  oneself  in 
another's  place — so  that  we  reciprocally  feel  one  another's  satis- 
factions and  discomforts.  Now,  sex  attraction,  as  well  as  pa- 
rental instinct,  strongly  individualizes  its  object.  Therefore  we 
may  assume  that  sex  makes  a  direct  contribution  to  the  apprecia- 
tion of  benevolence  and  justice.  Something  very  like  the  parental 
attitude  also  appears  between  lovers — ^the  attitude  of  protection, 
intense  response  to  every  sign  of  pain,  cuddling."  ^  It  is  a  matter 
of  great  social  import,  moreover,  that  sex  attraction  influences 
conduct  toward  persons  with  whom  sexual  union  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, as  in  the  attitudes  of  the  two  sexes  toward  each  other  in  the 
family,  in  social  gatherings  and  diversions,  in  friendships,  and  in 
the  many  respects  in  wliich  we  treat  the  two  sexes  differently. 
The  emotional  accompaniments  of  the  adolescent  sex  awakening 
affect  even  the  attitudes  of  males  toward  males  and  of  females 
toward  females;  yes,  the  fresh  aesthetic,  idealizing,  and  compan- 
ionship-seeking state  of  mind  often  modifies  one's  whole  social 
attitude,  and  even  one's  attitude  toward  nature. 

(11)  Parental  regard.  It  is  most  obvious  and  most  tender  in 
mothers,  being  related  in  origin  to  sensations  connected  with 
suckling  and  with  other  close  and  frequent  physical  contacts. 
But  it  is  instinctive  in  both  men  and  women.  Undoubtedly  the 
attachment  of  the  father  for  the  mother  has  much  to  do  with  the 
attention  that  he  gives  to  their  children,  and  thus  with  the  activity 
of  paternal  affection.  Possibly  self-giving  maternal  affection  is 
the  evolutionary  link  that  has  united  the  father  with  the  child, 
and  thus  given  rise  to  the  permanent  monogamous  family.  Yet 
the  father's  regard  for  his  children  is,  conversely,  an  added  bond 
between  him  and  their  mother.  In  any  case,  whatever  was  first 
in  origin,  the  spontaneous  readiness  of  both  parents  to  feed,  pro- 

1  G.  A.  Coe,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,     Chicago,  1916,  pp.  163  /.  (note). 


124  HUMAN  NATURE 

tect,  and  succor  their  offspring  through  the  extraordinarily  long 
human  infancy  is  a  prime  psychological  foundation  of  what  is 
finest,  and  most  difficult,  in  the  larger  social  integrations  of  men. 
Its  relation  to  the  larger  society  grows  out  of  two  circumstances: 
a.  In  the  family,  which  rests  upon  parental  instinct,  and  spe- 
cifically through  the  intimate  domestic  manifestations  of  this  in- 
stinct, children  receive  social  training  that  is  in  some  measure 
transferred  to  then*  life  in  the  larger  society,  h.  The  parental 
instinct  is  not  limited  to  parents,  nor  are  small  children  the  only 
objects  that  stimulate  it.  This  matter  is  so  involved  and  its 
social  bearings  are  so  important  that  detailed  attention  will  be 
given  to  It  In  a  subsequent  section. 

(12)   The  kind  of  imitativeness  that  produces  crowd  action. 

The  unique  social  significance  of  the  parental  instinct. 

Two  groups  of  facts  will  indicate  how  broad  and  deep  is  the 
influence  of  this  instinct  in  the  evolution  of  society,  particularly 
of  democratic  society. 

(1)  Parental  attitudes  arise  spontaneously  long  before  physi- 
ological capacity  for  parenthood  arrives;  they  live  on  through 
life,  even  though  one  never  has  children  of  one's  own,  and  they 
attach  themselves  not  only  to  children,  but  to  adults  as  well.  Noth- 
ing less  than  parental  are  the  relations  that  small  children, 
boys  as  well  as  girls,  assume  with  dolls,  animal  pets,  smaller 
children,  and  toys.  This  is  not  mere  imitation  of  older  per- 
sons, for  the  activities  are  clearly  different  from  those  of  adults 
in  many  respects,  and  the  emotional  fervor  and  tenacity  are 
too  obviously  original  with  the  child.  There  is  no  escaping 
the  conclusion  that  this  is  actual  parental  instinct.  Its  instinc- 
tive character  is  proved  by:  (1)  Its  universality.  (2)  The 
possibility  of  identifying  its  primary  objects  as  a  class,  namely, 
smaller  things  thought  of  as  living,  especially  those  that  are 
helpless,  lonely,  or  sufTerlng.  (3)  The  specific  nature  of  its 
motor  discharges,  such  as  taking  into  one's  arms,  keeping  near 
one  (as  at  night),  providing  food  (real  or  imaginary)  and  other 
objects  to  meet  particular  assumed  needs,  patting,  stroking, 
laying  the  cheek  against.  (4)  A  surprising  confirmation  of 
this  theory  that  has  been  brought  to  my  attention  by  one  of 


HUMAN  NATURE  125 

my  students.  The  evidence  consists  of  photographs  of  two 
half-grown  bluebirds,  one  of  which  is  in  the  act  of  feeding  a 
worm  to  the  other.  One  of  the  pictures  shows  the  two  facing 
each  other,  one  with  the  worm,  the  other  with  open  mouth; 
the  other  picture  shows  the  bill  of  the  first  bird  well  down  the 
throat  of  the  other.  Here  the  instinct  to  swallow  whenever 
a  worm  is  in  the  mouth  is  inhibited  exactly  as  it  is  when  a 
mother  bird  has  her  first  brood;  it  is  inhibited,  obviously,  by 
another  instinct. 

That  this  instinct  lives  on  through  life,  especially  if  it  re- 
ceives frequent  indulgence  either  in  affectionate  acts  toward 
one's  own  offspring  or  toward  other  objects,  hardly  needs  argu- 
ment. The  parental  petting  of  animals  does  not  cease  with 
childhood;  with  the  childless  it  is  often  a  substitute  for  literal 
parenthood.  A  baby,  too — anybody's  baby,  white,  yellow,  or 
black — is  an  object  of  peculiar  interest.  I  have  seen  the  tired 
faces  of  a  whole  group  of  men  and  women  in  a  New  York  sub- 
way car  relax  and  mellow  as  their  eyes  all  sought  the  face  of  a 
baby  playing  in  its  mother's  lap.  Austere  men,  hard  men,  boys 
who  are  ready  to  bully  those  only  a  little  younger  than  them- 
selves, all  are  gentle,  all  take  the  attitude  of  protection  toward 
very  small  children.^  The  teaching  profession,  education  as  a 
whole,  is  permeated  by  a  truly  parental  interest  in  the  young. 

When  parents  reach  the  weakness  of  old  age,  then  the  chil- 
dren, in  their  turn,  assume  the  parental  attitude  toward  those 
who  bore  them.  A  gentleman  who  was  showing  exquisite 
tenderness  toward  an  aged  parent  remarked:  "I  have  had  no 
children  of  my  own,  you  know."  In  general,  too,  does  not 
reverence  for  gray  hairs  contain  this  instinct  as  one  of  its  con- 
stituents? And  why  is  it  that  everybody  is  ready  to  help  a 
blind  man  find  his  way  upon  the  street?  No  doubt  the  im- 
pulses that  underlie  our  relations  to  our  fellows  are  complex, 
and  to  some  extent  contradictory.  Some  of  them  become 
dominant,    others    are   smothered,    or   contradictory   impulses 

1  Without  doubt  males  would  be  more  demonstrative  in  this  direction  but 
for  a  social  tradition  of  sex  inequality,  and  but  for  that  other  balefUl  tradi- 
tion, that  manliness  is  demonstrated  by  fishting  rather  than  by  tenderness. 
These,  too,  rest  back  upon  instinct,  of  covirse. 


126  HUMAN  NATURE 

alternate.  But  any  one  who  has  eyes  can  see  continually  com- 
ing to  the  surface,  in  fragmentary  ways  at  least,  spontaneous 
helpfulness  of  the  parental  type. 

(2)  The  parental  instinct  is  the  chief  source ^  probably  the 
exclusive  source,  of  tender  regard  for  individuals  as  such,  that  is, 
taking  another's  happiness  or  woe  as  one's  very  own.  Thorn- 
dike  is,  on  the  whole,  inclined  to  regard  the  pitying  response 
to  signs  of  weakness,  fright,  and  pain,  as  an  instance  of,  or 
derivative  from,  "motherly  behavior."^  Whatever  be  the 
fact  in  this  matter,  pity  is  only  one  aspect  of  mothering,  and 
it  is  only  one  aspect  of  regard  for  individuals  as  such.  The 
major  manifestation  of  this  regard  is  demand  for  justice  for 
all  men  simply  as  men,  and  readiness  to  suffer  actively  with 
them  in  the  struggle  to  obtain  it.  There  is  something  in  us 
that  makes  us  individualize  our  fellows,  think  of  them  one  by 
one  apart  from  possessions,  apart  from  their  age  and  social 
status,  apart  even  from  their  individual  defects,  and  believe  in 
them.  The  one  point  at  which  we  can  indisputably  discern  an 
instinctive  tendency  to  do  this  is  the  relation  of  parents  to 
their  children.  We  follow  the  line  of  probability,  then,  when 
we  look  upon  the  sacrifice  of  one's  own  welfare  that  others 
may  have  their  rights  (welfare,  that  is,  as  measured  by  any  less 
social  standard)  as  being,  on  the  large  human  scale,  the  same 
thing  as  a  parent's  insistence  that  each  of  his  children  shall 
have  life,  and  liberty,  and  happiness. 

Our  problem  here,  it  will  be  perceived,  concerns  the  instinc- 
tive basis  of  the  love  of  mankind  that  is  required  by  the  second 
of  the  two  Great  Commandments.  We  call  it  brotherly  love, 
and  speak  of  its  goal  as  the  brotherhood  of  man.  But  what  is 
brotherly  love,  even  within  the  limits  of  the  family?  Is  the 
bond  between  brothers  and  sisters  a  specific  fraternal  instinct? 
The  existence  of  such  an  instinct  is  by  no  means  proved  by  the 
obvious  naturalness  of  the  affection.  Consider  the  closeness  of 
the  association  between  brothers  and  sisters,  then  consider  the 
long  period  through  which  it  lasts,  and  finally  ask  what,  under 
these  conditions,  is  to  be  expected  from  the  instincts  numbered 

»  Pp.  102  /, 


HUMAN  NATURE  127 

1  to  6  in  our  list.  From  these  alone,  under  the  laws  of  habit 
formation,  we  should  expect  a  rather  close  group  life  which  is 
likely  to  make  a  lifelong  distinction  between  one's  own  brothers 
and  sisters  and  other  persons.  What  we  have  to  account  for 
in  addition  is  positive  outgoing  affection,  which  far  transcends 
the  habitual  accommodations  to  one  another  that  grow  out  of 
the  instincts  just  referred  to.  That  is,  we  have  to  account  for 
affection  like  that  of  parent  for  child.  What  if  fraternal  affec- 
tion, in  its  most  intimate  phase,  is  the  exercise  of  parental  in- 
stinct? We  cannot  be  mistaken  in  seeing  this  instinct  in  cer- 
tain attitudes  of  older  children  toward  brothers  and  sisters  who 
are  much  younger.  We  are  not  likely  to  err  when  we  interpret 
in  the  same  way  all  the  rest  of  the  sympathetic  fraternal  loyalty 
that  springs  up  in  domestic  intimacies.  Finally,  the  parents' 
own  instinctive  attitudes  act  as  a  constant  suggestion  to  the 
children  to  take  the  same  attitudes  toward  one  another.  The 
sum  of  the  matter  is  that  the  fraternal  relation  in  the  family 
is  a  highly  ^jomplex  thing,  and  that  it  gets  its  quality  of  justice 
or  feelingly  taking  the  brother's  interests  as  one's  own,  from 
the  factor  of  parental  instinct. 

From  what  quality  of  original  nature  comes  the  affectionate 
response  of  a  child  to  a  parent's  affection?  Love  begets  love, 
no  doubt,  but  how  ?  If  we  had  to  rely  upon  antecedent  proba- 
bilities we  should  guess  that  there  is  a  filial  instinct  that  answers 
to  the  parental.  But  when  we  analyze  an  infant's  earliest 
reactions  to  maternal  care,  we  discover  that  they  fall  chiefly 
under  the  first  six  heads  of  our  list  together  with  the  twelfth. 
What  remains  to  be  accounted  for  is  filial  affection  or  love  in 
the  strict  sense  already  defined  in  the  last  two  paragraphs. 
But  this  is  the  same  sort  of  attitude  that  distinguishes  parental 
affection.  What,  then,  if  filial  affection,  like  the  corresponding 
phase  of  fraternal  affection,  is  an  early  manifestation  of  parental 
instinct?  What  but  this  is  the  attitude  of  protection  and  of 
succor  toward  a  father  or  a  mother  who  is  weary  and  heavy 
laden,  sick,  in  sorrow,  injured  by  others,  or  suffering  reverses 
and  disappointments?  Family  intimacies  provide  precisely 
the  opportunity,  scarcely  existent  elsewhere,  for  small  children 


128  HUMAN  NATURE  • 

to  play  the  parent  to  mature  persons.  Small  children  pat  and 
stroke  a  parent's  face  or  hand,  and  when  is  a  little  one  as  happy 
as  when  he  can  play  parent  to  the  whole  family?  A  boy  of 
about  four  years,  when  his  mother  was  nursing  him  through 
the  croup,  said :  "  Show  me  just  what  you  do  for  me,  mother, 
so  that  when  I  have  little  boys  and  girls  with  croup,  I  will 
know  what  to  do  for  them."  About  six  weeks  later,  when  his 
mother  had  a  headache,  he  assumed  the  attitude  of  physician 
and  parent  to  her  just  as  he  had  done  to  his  own  prospective 
children.  Nothing  seems  to  evoke  filial  affection  as  surely  as 
being  permitted  to  help  father  and  mother.  Doing  things  for 
a  child  does  not  touch  his  heart  half  as  much  as  permittiu^g  him 
to  do  things  for  you  I^  The  conclusion  is  that  our  love  for  our 
fathers  and  mothers  is  of  the  same  instinctive  quality  as  their 
love  for  us.  We  can  be  good  sons  and  daughters  by  letting 
free  in  ourselves  the  very  thing  that  makes  a  good  parent. 

A  side-light  upon  this  question  may  be  discerned  in  the  com- 
mon chivalric  devotion  of  sons  to  their  mothers,  to  which  noth- 
ing in  the  ordinary  relations  of  sons  to  fathers  corresponds. 
This  devotion  probably  has  one  of  its  roots  in  some  obscure 
response  to  sex  differences,  but  another  part  of  the  explanation, 
without  doubt,  is  that  the  more  frequent  manifestation  of  weak- 
ness or  of  distress  by  the  mother  has  called  out,  and  by  habit 
confirmed,  the  son's  parental  instinct. 

It  is  not  less  true  that  love  for  mankind  as  such,  to  the  ex- 
tent that  it  is  anywhere  realized,  is  an  exercise  of  parental 
instinct.  We  see  this  clearly  in  child-welfare  movements. 
The  parent  mind  in  us  is  what  yearns  over  sick  babies.  This 
it  is  that  insists,  even  at  great  expense  to  ourselves,  upon  giving 
to  the  next  generation,  through  education,  a  better  and  larger 
life  than  we  have  had.  It  is  the  same  impulse  that  hastens  to 
the  relief  of  sufferers  from  famine,  flood,  and  war,  and  that 
takes  pure  joy  in  seeing  others  well  fed  and  happy.  To  this, 
in  the  end,  must  we  appeal  for  the  community  spirit  that  puts 
sanitation,  education,  civic  beauty,  and  diffused  happiness 
upon  the  plane  of  simple  humanity,  that  is  above  all  consid- 
i  Cf.  Patterson  Du  Bois,  Beckonings  from  Little  Hands  (1900). 


HUMAN  NATURE  129 

erations  of  private  advantage,  either  immediate  or  ultimate. 
What  makes  us  struggle  for  democracy,  too,  is  that,  putting 
ourselves  imaginatively  in  the  place  of  the  narrowed,  thwarted, 
stunted  lives  about  us,  we  feel  toward  them  as  we  would  if  they 
were  our  own  children.  What  we  democrats  demand,  in  fact, 
is  that  all  men  everywhere  should  have  opportunity  to  grow  up. 

Because  all  men  are  potentially  parent-minded,  the  world  is 
capable  of  being  won  to  democracy.  We  can  make  the  sacri- 
fices that  this  will  require — sacrifices  of  our  substance,  of  our 
labor,  and  of  our  aristocratic  and  plutocratic  privileges — for 
the  same  reason  that  we  can  do  it  for  our  natural  offspring. 

Social  education  requires  that  some  instincts  be  suj)-^_ 
pressed.  When  the  term  instinct  is  used  for  broad,  general 
qualities  of  human  nature  rather  than  for  readiness  to  act  in 
a  specific  way  in  a  specific  situation,  it  is  possible  to  claim  that 
no  instinct  should  be  suppressed.  If,  for  example,  we  classify 
all  spontaneous  getting  under  an  "acquisitive"  instinct,  we 
shall  hold  that  it  has  some  permanent  value.  But  when  we 
come  to  details  we  discover  that  some  acquisition  is  just  a  grab- 
bing that  increases  in  intensity  if  another  person  is  seen  to  get 
or  to  be  likely  to  get  any  part  of  the  desired  objects.  Grabbing 
away  from  others  goes  on,  too,  until  one  accumulates  more  than 
one  can  use.  In  such  rivalry  and  greed  one's  relation  to  per- 
sons is  exactly  contrary  to  parental  instinct,  which  delights  in 
seeing  another  feed  himself.  W^hat  must  be  done  with  rivalry 
and  greed  in  the  interest  of  society  is  to  suppress  them  if  we 
can.  Similarly,  scorn  for  those  who  are  weak,  physically  de- 
fective, or  lacking  in  good  looks,  seems  to  serve  no  present  social 
ends,  but  to  hinder  them  only.  -- 

Likewise,  instinctive  mastery  and  submission  seem,  though 
not  quite  as  certainly,  to  be  at  least  needless,  and  possibly 
without  exception  a  hinderance  to  the  growth  of  society  toward 
democracy.  What  democracy  requires  is  co-operation.  Lead- 
ership is  of  course  necessary,  but  leadership  that  is  itself  co- 
operation, a  fulfilling  of  the  w  ill  of  the  led,  not  mastery  of  them. 
Curbing  of  individual  will  also  is  required,  but  this  again  is, 
ideally,  not  submission  to  the  arbitrary  will  of  another,  but 


130  HUMAN  NATURE 

one's  contribution  to  a  common  will  from  which  arbitrariness 
has  been  eliminated  by  maldng  it  truly  a  common  will.  These 
remarks  apply  to  sex  relations  as  well  as  to  others.  Instinctive 
mastery  by  the  male,  and  instinctive  submission  by  the  fe- 
male, are  a  social  evil  because  of  their  effect  upon  the  character 
of  both  the  man  and  the  woman,  and  because  of  the  support 
that  they  lend  to  social  inequalities  beyond  the  conjugal  rela- 
tion. Conjugal  affection  must  be  democratized  along  with  the 
other  social  relations. 

The  instincts  of  hunting,  anger,  and  pugnacity,  in  many 
instances,  though  scarcely  in  all,  have  an  antisocial  tendency. 
The  tormenting  of  animals,  or  the  killing  of  them  for  other 
purposes  than  food  and  protection,  the  hunting  down  of  men  in 
partisanships,  persecutions,  and  wars,  and  all  the  purely 
destructive  forms  of  anger  and  pugnacity,  are  obviously  un- 
social in  fact  and  in  tendency.  But  most  persons  suppose  that 
these  instincts  are  sometimes  useful  socially,  not  for  purposes 
of  destruction,  but  as  constituents  of  a  rationally  controlled 
good  will.  There  can,  it  seems,  be  anger  and  pugnacity  toward 
evil  without  hating  the  evil-doer.  But  how  much  reflectiveness, 
how  much  self-restraint  are  required  to  maintain  this  distinc- 
tion in  practice  I  We  need  to  be  cautious  lest  the  undeniable 
pleasure  of  destroying  living  things  that  we  dislike  be  indulged 
under  the  specious  name  of  "  righteous  indignation,"  or  "  hatred 
of  wrong,"  or  "standing  for  righteousness."  When  anger  or 
pugnacity  separates  me  from  any  human  being  so  that  he  ceases 
to  have  value  for  me,  or  so  that  the  value  that  I  theoretically 
attribute  to  him  does  not  control  my  conduct  toward  him,  social 
ends  are  not  promoted,  they  are  hindered  only.  If  I  must  fight 
against  something  that  you  fight  for,  I  must  herein  fight /or  you, 
for  a  better  and  happier  you,  yes,  for  a  fellowship  with  you  that 
is  yet  to  be. 

The  deep  depravity  of  war,  just  as  of  enmities  between  in- 
dividuals, lies  in  the  implied  denial  that  my  enemy  is  still  my 
brother,  and  that  I  am  his  keeper — all  the  more  his  keeper  if 
he  has  faults  that  I  can  help  him  to  overcome.  Herein  con- 
sists the  profound  difference,  the  impassable  gulf,  between  war 


HUMAN  NATURE  131 

and  the  exercise  of  police  power.  If  a  policeman  discovers 
me  in  the  act  of  picking  your  pocket,  he  does  not  dispose  of  my 
case  by  clubbing  me.  No,  he  brings  me  before  a  court  in  which, 
though  I  have  done  wrong,  I  still  have  rights  which  society 
protects,  the  very  society  that  I  have  wronged.  Here,  in  the 
calmness  of  reason,  my  relations  to  the  welfare  of  society  are 
determined,  and  also,  in  any  enlightened  penal  system,  my  re- 
lations to  my  own  welfare.  What  modern  penology  aims  at 
is  not  to  separate  me  from  my  fellows,  but  by  separating  me 
from  my  evil  ways  to  unite  me  closer  to  my  fellows.  If,  now, 
the  policeman  undertakes  to  settle  my  relations  to  society  with 
a  club,  if  he  assumes  that  I  am  nothing  as  against  the  offended 
will  of  the  state,  if  he  is  not  my  policeman,  acting  for  me  as 
well  as  my  neighbors,  he  exemplifies  the  tooth-and-claw  con- 
ception that  underlies  war.  War,  which  endeavors  to  impose 
one  national  will  upon  another  by  force,  must  be  supplanted  by 
a  system  of  world-law,  world-com'ts,  and  a  world-police,  which 
will  seek  the  welfare  of  offender  and  offended  alike,  and  work 
always  toward  the  maintenance,  and  if  need  be  the  restoration, 
of  fellowship.  Tliis  implies  educational  measures  for  suppress- 
ing our  socially  destructive  instincts,  for  stopping  war  at  its 
source  in  our  own  minds. ^ 

The  socially  constructive  instincts,  all  of  them,  require 
training.  Even  the  best  natural  impulses,  taken  by  themselves, 
are  uneconomical;  they  are  not  sufficiently  fine  for  the  work 
that  has  to  be  done.  Maternal  affection  prompts  mothers  to 
give  to  infants  coffee  and  beer  as  well  as  milk;   and  until  this 

1  See  H.  R.  Marshall,  War  and  the  Ideal  of  Peace.  A  Study  of  Those  Char- 
acteristics of  Man  That  Result  in  War,  and  of  the  Means  by  Which  They  May 
Be  Controlled.     New  York,  1915. 

(Note. — The  above  paragraph  was  written  while  I  still  believed  that  a 
war  between  the  United  States  and  Germany  might  be  avoided.  Before  I 
conmiit  the  paragraph  to  the  typesetter  I  have  opportimity  to  review  my 
words  in  the  light  of  tlie  actuality  of  the  dreaded  conflict.  It  is  clear  that  the 
pmT)ose  of  our  war  as  defined  by  President  Wilson  takes  the  standpoint  of 
what  I  have  called  above  "the  exercise  of  poUce  power."  There  is,  in  fact,  a 
remarkable  parallel  between  my  conception  of  "world-law,  world-courts,  and 
world-police,"  and  the  requirements  of  world-decency  as  he  defines  them. 
For  he  calls  upon  us  to  employ  force,  not  to  impose  our  national  will  upon 
any  nation,  but  to  secure  "the  riglits  of  nations,  great  and  small,  and  the 
privilege  of  men  everywhere  to  choose  their  way  of  life  and  of  obedience." 
*'We  have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.    We  desire  no  conquest,  no  dominion.     We 


132  HUMAN  NATURE 

instinct  is  trained  It  reacts  in  the  same  way  to  pure  and  to  im- 
pure milk.  Thorndike  remarks  that  "the  irrational  impulse 
to  get  the  sick  to  eat  seems  to  prevail  the  world  over."^  These 
examples  would  of  themselves  be  convincing.  The  full  pro- 
portions of  the  task  of  positive  social  training  should,  however, 
be  faced.  This  can  be  done  by  going  carefully  through  our  list 
of  instincts,  noting  how,  from  beginning  to  end,  they  consti- 
tute the  basis  of  possible  social  conduct,  not  at  one  level  only  but 
at  any  one  of  many  levels.  This  is  most  often  recognized  in 
respect  to  sex  attraction,  which  underlies  conduct  that  ranges 
all  the  way  from  brutality  to  saintliness.  The  same  sort  of 
analysis  will  show  that,  in  the  sphere  of  the  gregarious  instinct 
also  we  may  habituate  ourselves  to  pleasure  in  one  type  of 
society  as  against  another.  We  have  an  instinctive  interest  in 
what  other  human  beings  are  doing;  yes,  but  we  may  acquire 
a  habit  of  being  more  interested  in  important  than  in  unim- 
portant doings.  Here  is  the  possibility  of  growing  out  of  gossip 
into  conversation!  We  want  to  be  noticed  by  others;  yes, 
but  we  may  learn  to  take  more  pleasure  in  being  noticed  by  one 
sort  of  persons  than  another.  We  instinctively  like  to  be 
approved,  but  by  training  we  can  make  ourselves  unresponsive 
to  praise  and  blame  from  certain  quarters,  and  we  can  concen- 
trate our  claims  to  approval  upon  that  in  us  which  we  can  our- 
selves approve.  We  spontaneously  admire  beauty,  but  upon 
our  training  it  depends  whether  or  not  we  notice  beauty  of 
spirit.  We  instinctively  go  with  the  crowd,  but  we  can  form  a 
discriminating  taste  with  respect  to  crowds,  so  that  some  of 

seek  no  indemnities  for  ourselves,  no  material  compensation  for  the  sacrifices 
we  shall  freely  make."  We  are  "seeking  nothing  for  ourselves  but  what  we 
shall  wish  to  share  with  all  free  peoples."  We  are  to  work  toward  "the 
ultimate  peace  of  the  world . ' '  We  are  to  make  the  world  ' '  safe  for  democracy ' ' 
by  ' '  setting  up  amongst  the  reaUy  free  and  self-governed  peoples  of  the  world 
such  a  concert  of  purpose  and  of  action  as  wiU  henceforth  insure  the  observ- 
ance of "  .  .  .  "peace  and  justice  in  the  Ufe  of  the  world  as  against  selfish  and 
autocratic  power."  "We  are  at  the  beginning  of  an  age  in  which  it  will  be 
insisted  that  the  same  standards  of  conduct  and  of  responsibiUty  for  wrong 
done  shall  be  observed  among  nations  and  their  governments  that  are  ob- 
served among  the  individual  citizens  of  civiUzed  states." 

The  implication  of  all  this  is  that  we  have  before  us  the  task  of  establishing 
a  genuine  world-police  power.] 

1  P.  193. 


HUMAN  NATURE  133 

them  we  do  not  enjoy.  In  short,  there  is  not  a  single  point  at 
which  our  instincts  are  sufficient  of  themselves  to  provide  for 
social  progress.  Blind  impulse  makes  happy  hits,  of  course, 
as  it  makes  unhappy  ones.  What  we  have  to  do  is  to  raise 
above  chance  the  proportion  of  hits  and  misses.  An  inevitable 
pnrt  of  our  ethical  calling  is  to  bestow  sight  upon  even  the  best 
of  our  instinctive  qualities. 

Popular  confusion  between  what  is  instinctive  and  what 
is  acquired.  How  often  do  we  hear  it  said  of  one  child  that 
he  is  "naturally"  amiable,  and  of  another  that  he  is  "naturally" 
self-willed,  the  implication  of  "naturally"  being  that  the  quality 
in  question  is  a  matter  of  original  endowment,  and  therefore 
unchangeable.  No  doubt  the  amiability  and  the  self-will  are 
both  natural.  But  the  popular  mind  does  not  realize  that 
habit-formation  (which  is  as  spontaneous,  as  "natural"  as 
anything  else),  intertwining  with  instinct,  fixes  some  of  the 
early  instinctive  responses  so  that  they  w^ill  be  repeated  there- 
after to  the  exclusion  of  other  responses  that  are  equally  possible 
at  the  beginning.  One's  instinctive  endowment  is  not  a  walled 
lane  that  offers  no  alternatives  to  one's  feet,  but  an  open  trail, 
with  many  forks  and  branches,  some  leading  into  life's  swamps 
and  quagmires,  some  onto  the  meadows  of  conventional  good- 
ness, some  upward  to  the  bright  peaks  and  the  dark  valleys  of 
social  idealism. 

Children's  dispositions  are  complexes  of  what  is  native  and 
what  is  acquired.  The  acquired  part  is  the  habits  whereby 
certain  impulses,  specialized  by  experience,  are  given  a  per- 
manent and  specific  direction,  while  other  native  impulses, 
unused  or  repressed,  remain  in  the  background,  or  decrease 
toward  complete  atrophy.  Favorable  or  unfavorable  nervous 
conditions  (whether  they  are  determined  by  health  and  disease, 
or  by  such  hygienic  matters  as  proper  and  improper  feeding) 
are  one  fundamental  factor.  When  nerves  are  irritated,  and 
vitality  is  depressed,  the  range  of  possible  happiness  is  limited, 
and  the  particular  narrow  range  of  satisfactions  tends  to  be- 
come permanent  in  its  narrowness.  If  peevishness,  obstinacy, 
or  screaming  is  what  brings  the  child  his  satisfactions,  of  course 


134  HUMAN  NATURE 

it  becomes  a  habit.  It  is  then  called  the  child's  disposition, 
and  is  attributed  to  the  stepmotherliness  of  nature !  On  the 
other  hand,  granted  favorable  nervous  conditions,  jplus  con- 
stant and  abundant  opportunity  for  mutual  pleasures  (the  child 
with  his  parents  and  with  other  children),  plus  steady,  unrelaxing 
arrangements  whereby  individualistic  reactions  are  prevented 
from  bringing  pleasure — granted  these  things,  any  child  will 
acquire  an  amiable  disposition.  Unthinking  persons  will  attrib- 
ute it  to  some  mystery  of  original  nature,  whereas,  as  settled 
disposition  it  is  a  result  of  habit  formation,  a  product  of  social 
training,  whether  intended  or  unintended. 

The  superinstinctive  factors  of  our  social  nature.  The 
inventory  of  man's  original  social  capacities  includes,  as  was 
noted  a  little  way  back,  certain  general  tendencies  toward  the 
organization  of  a  self,  and  toward  the  increasing  integration  of 
men  in  social  institutions.  The  special  instinct-factors  that 
have  just  occupied  our  attention  are  not  a  mere  collection  of 
zoological  specimens — odd  forms,  odd  voices,  odd  ways — each 
living  its  own  life  without  regard  to  others.  Our  instincts  are 
more  like  the  multiplicity  of  a  city. 

When  we  look  from  the  upper  stories  of  a  tall  office-building 
far  down  into  streets  thronged  with  incessantly  moving  men, 
our  first  impression  is  likely  to  be  that  of  the  utter  irrationality 
of  what  we  behold.  It  seems  to  be  a  meaningless  coming  and 
going,  like  dust  particles  carried  in  air  currents  hither  and 
thither.  Yet  what  we  see  is  not  a  chaos  of  impulsive  acts,  but 
acts  organized  into  great  systems — systems  for  feeding  and 
clothing  the  people,  for  teaching  the  children,  for  distributing 
news,  for  healing  the  sick,  for  protecting  the  public  health, 
for  restraining  those  who  lack  self-restraint.  Moreover,  if  we 
look  into  each  of  these  moving  particles  of  humanity,  we  find 
its  own  diverse  elements  at  least  partly  organized,  each  man  be- 
ing an  individual  self,  not  walking  at  random,  but  going  some- 
whither that  he  desires  and  approves.  There  is  not  a  man 
in  the  throng  who  has  not  to  some  extent  taken  notice  of  his 
instinctive  impulses ;  there  is  not  a  man  who  is  not  holding  some 
of  these  impulses  in  leash. 


HUMAN  NATURE  135 

To  become  individual  selves  is  a  part  of  our  original  nature. 
It  is  a  part  of  our  original  nature  to  form  societies  not  merely 
on  the  basis  of  instincts  that  flow  in  the  same  direction  but 
also  on  the  basis  of  recognized  selfhood.  Now,  these  two,  the 
formation  of  a  definite  self  and  the  formation  of  societies,  are 
not  in  reality  separate  processes,  nor  are  the  results  separate; 
rather,  we  have  here  two  phases  of  a  single  process,  two  phases 
of  a  single  achievement.  For  the  achievement  of  a  self  is  possi- 
ble only  in  and  through  recognition  of  other  selves,  and  what  is 
distinctively  human  in  society  is  precisely  the  organization  of 
regard  for  individual  selves  as  finalities. 

Movement,  effort  toward  this  achievement,  is  natural  to 
man — as  natural  as  fleeing  from  a  lion  or  pursuing  a  deer.  Here 
is  something  in  human  nature  that  is  superinstinctive,  some- 
thing that  reflects  upon,  regulates,  and  uses  instinct,  and  this 
something  is  in  the  profoundest  possible  sense  both  individual 
and  social.^ 

The  notion  that  human  nature  does  not  change.  What 
has  now  been  said  as  to  the  variability  of  habit  within  the  scope 
of  the  instincts,  and  with  respect  to  the  naturalness  of  the 
correlative  growth  of  self  and  society,  has  an  important  bear- 
ing upon  that  ogre's  castle  of  social  pessimism:  "Your  ideals 
won't  work  as  long  as  human  nature  remains  what  it  is."  For 
now  we  can  answer:  "What  do  you  mean  by  human  nature?" 
The  problem  is  by  no  means  ended  when  we  have  recognized 
the  fact  that  the  instincts  are  hereditary,  permanent,  and  fun- 
damental to  character.  We  must  bear  in  mind,  in  addition, 
first,  that  no  instinct  is  strictly  univocal,  but  that  every  one  has 
indefinitely  many  possible  modes  of  expression  that  vary  through 
a  large  scale;  second,  that  habit  forming  is  also  human  nature, 
and  that  it  makes  possible  the  fixing  in  human  life,  in  an  individ- 
ual and  through  the  generations  by  training,  of  either  better 
or  worse  instinctive  ways;  and,  third,  that  to  become  a  self- 
criticising  self,  and  to  form  self-criticising  societies,  are  also  a 

1 1  content  myself  with  this  brief  statement  here  because  I  touch  upon 
It  in  other  places  in  the  present  work,  and  because  I  have  discussed  it  in  my 
Psychology  of  Religion  (see  Index  under  "  Social  Aspects  of  Religion,"  and 
chap.  XiV). 


136  HUMAN  NATURE 

part  of  human  nature,  so  that  nature  herself  provides  fori 
taking  the  side  of  social  aspiration  as  against  what  is  unsocial 
in  our  instincts.  "  As  long  as  human  nature  remains  what  it  is," 
therefore,  we  may  expect  indefinite  transformation  of  social, 
life  toward  the  highest  ideals  that  we  can  conceive.  The  in- 
dividual who  in  full  health  and  vigor  lies  down  under  the  weight 
of  ancient  wrong,  saying  that  it  is  just  human  nature,  does 
thereby  make  himself  a  critic  of  that  nature,  does  thereby  justify 
the  opinion  that  he  could  hate  ancient  wrong  a  little  harder,  and 
that  he  could  summon  his  neighbors  not  to  surrender  but  to 
keep  up  the  fight. 

What  if,  moreover,  self-conscious  contemplation  of  our  de- 
sires should  give  rise  to  new  desires  ?  How  often,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  something  like  this  certainly  does  occur.  When  I  was  a 
boy  I  thought  it  would  be  sport  to  shoot  a  meadow-lark — I 
thought  so  until  a  dead  lark  lay  in  my  hands.  I  can  see  even 
now  how  its  head  hung  limp  when  I  lifted  the  beautiful  body. 
At  that  instant  one  desire  died  and  another  was  born.  I  saw 
myself  having  my  desire,  but  defeated  just  because  I  had 
succeeded.  I  advanced  to  a  new  point  of  view,  a  new  standard 
of  values,  a  new  arrangement  of  instinctive  likes  and  dislikes. 
It  makes  little  difference  whether  or  not  the  new  attitude  can 
be  classed  under  one  of  the  instincts,  for  I  came  to  myself y  to  a 
new  self,  to  an  unprecedented  desire. 

Society  attains  new  mass  desires  in  similar  ways.  When, 
rising  above  crowd  action,  and  holding  up  our  social  habits  to 
relentless  scrutiny,  we  say:  "This  is  our  work,  the  result  of 
what  our  community  has  done  or  neglected  to  do.  Is  this 
what  we  desire?"  then  we  cringe  before  our  old  community 
self,  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  we  are  inspired  to  excel  ourselves. 
In  increasing  instances  a  community  survey  awakens  community 
self-consciousness,  and  then  and  there  men  begin  to  support 
one  another  in  having  desires  that  they  simply  did  not  have 
before. 

Social  reconstruction  is  provided  for  in  the  nature  of  man. 
This  is  the  reason  why  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  men  change  so 
markedly  between  savagery  and  civilization.     We  simply  could 


HUMAN  NATURE  137 

not  enjoy  some  of  the  things  that  brought  intense  satisfaction 
to  our  early  ancestors  unless  in  some  way  we  could  be  gradually 
trained  backward.  We  are  sunk  enough,  God  knows,  yet 
wants  are  better  than  they  were.  By  giving  attention  to  what 
we  really  want,  and  by  training  the  impulses  that  we  really 
prefer,  we  shall  develop  still  other  wants  and  the  ways  of  satis- 
fying them.^ 

1  In  chap.  XIII  of  my  Psychology  of  Religion,  I  have  discussed  this  question  at 
greater  length. 


CHAPTER  XI 
CHILDREN'S  FAITH  IN  GOD 

Children's  notions  of  God  are  acquired  as  other  notions 
are.  To  the  question,  How  do  little  children  get  their  notions 
of  God?  there  is  a  simple,  obvious  answer:  By  instruction  and 
hearsay,  just  as  ideas  of  angels,  fairies,  hobgoblins,  Santa  Glaus, 
and  of  historical  personages  are  acquired.  This  "acquiring" 
of  an  idea  includes,  of  course,  a  complex  reaction.  Language 
has  no  power  to  transfer  a  thought  from  one  mind  to  another, 
but  only  to  stimulate  a  mind  to  think.  The  meaning  of  the 
term  God,  and  of  any  affirmation  about  him,  has  to  be  con- 
strued by  imaginative  combination  of  thought  materials  derived 
from  the  child's  previous  experiences.  Nor  does  the  idea, 
once  started,  continue  "in  one  stay,"  but  items  from  the  child's 
growing  experience  are  read  into  it  and  out  of  it. 

The  idea  of  God  varies,  therefore,  from  child  to  child,  and 
from  day  to  day,  according  to  instruction  or  hearsay,  the  mean- 
ings that  words  (such  as  father)  have  already  acquired,  the 
characteristic  experiences  of  the  child  (especially  his  experience 
of  persons),  and  his  usual  methods  of  association  and  of  infer- 
ence. A  boy  not  yet  four  years  old  who  had  had  difficulty 
with  "bad  boys"  in  his  back  yard  arranged  there  a  house  for 
God,  saying:  "He'll  keep  the  bad  boys  out;  nobody  else  can." 
This  "house  of  God"  was  merely  a  large  doll-house  with  some 
additions  of  the  boy's  own  devising.  When  he  was  four  years 
and  eight  months  old  he  spontaneously  made  a  drawing,  in 
which  God  and  Santa  Glaus,  a  Christmas  tree,  flags,  home,  and 
toys,  which  include  a  locomotive  engine  on  a  railroad-track, 
all  figure.  It  is  evident  that  this  child,  putting  his  own  con- 
struction upon  the  words  of  others,  had  built  up  a  notion  of 
God  far  different  from  what  his  elders  intended.     On  the  other 

138 


CHILDREN'S  FAITH  139 

hand,  the  direct  influence  of  instruction  seems  to  appear  in  his 
argument  with  a  playmate  who  had  asserted  that  "If  you  do 
anything  in  a  dark  room  God  can't  see  it."  "Yes,  he  can!" 
was  the  reply,  "  He  can  see  you  even  in  a  dark  room.  He  looks 
down  through  the  stars,  and  I'm  not  going  to  do  anything  to 
get  caught ! " 

Another  boy  of  about  the  same  age  gave  the  following  ob- 
jective evidence  of  the  Christmas  story  that  he  had  recently 
heard.  Of  his  own  motion  he  devised  for  the  entertainment  of 
his  parents  and  some  guests  a  dramatization  of  the  Star  in  the 
East.  First,  extinguishing  other  lights,  he  lighted  a  candle, 
which  was  to  represent  the  sun.  Then  he  placed  an  apple  for 
the  moon,  and  extinguished  the  candle  in  order  to  show  that 
night  had  come.  Finally,  announcing  that  he  w^as  God,  and 
was  going  to  bring  in  the  Star  of  Bethlehem,  he  marched  into 
the  room,  bearing  some  sticks  crudely  fastened  together  with 
the  apparent  pm-pose  of  representing  the  conventional  picture 
of  a  star's  rays. 

As  an  illustration  of  how  the  child's  own  social  experience  is 
read  into  his  thought  of  God,  the  following  case  is  instructive. 
"Mamma,"  said  a  boy  a  little  older  than  those  just  mentioned, 
"do  you  know  what  I'm  going  to  do  the  first  thing  when  I  get 
to  heaven?  I'm  going  to  run  up  to  the  Heavenly  Father,  and 
give  him  a  kiss!"  Obviously  this  feeling-reaction  to  the  idea 
of  a  Heavenly  Father  is  due  in  part  to  experience  in  a  human 
family. 

Suggestion  and  imitation  in  childhood  religion.  Thus, 
both  the  fact  that  children  have  ideas  of  God,  and  the  varia- 
tions of  these  ideas  from  our  adult  notions  are  easily  accounted 
for.  That  children  really  believe  in  God  thus  conceived  is  also 
obvious  enough.  They  believe  what  they  are  told,  and  in  this 
respect  no  difference  is  discernible  between  belief  in  God,  in  the 
Sand  Man,  or  in  the  Black  Man.  The  influence  of  mere  sug- 
gestion upon  children's  beliefs  is  possibly  more  extensive  and 
more  prolonged  than  we  ordinarily  suppose.  On  a  certain  occa- 
sion, having  told  to  a  group  of  children  a  story  of  how  I  had  seen 
a  chipmunk  store  food,  which  included  a  muscat  grape,  upon 


140  CHILDREN'S  FAITH 

the  branches  of  a  fir-tree,  I  remarked:  "So  there  was  a  green 
grape  growing  upon  an  evergreen  tree  ! "  One  of  my  listeners, 
a  girl  of  about  eight  years,  came  to  me  some  days  afterward 
to  inquire  whether  the  grape  really  did  grow  upon  that  tree  ! 
/  Just  as  children  readily  accept  our  instruction,  so  they  will- 
ingly imitate  our  religious  acts.  The  evening  prayer,  grace 
before  meat,  participation  in  public  worship — these,  under 
favorable  conditions,  are  well  liked;  they  require  no  com- 
pulsion. But  they  cannot,  without  further  evidence,  be  re- 
garded as  clear  signs  of  piety.  Nevertheless,  even  such  imita- 
tive acts  may  have  immediate  social  value,  and  ultimate  relig- 
ious value.  In  a  certain  family  that  was  accustomed  to  have 
brief  devotions  at  the  breakfast-table  there  was  a  girl  who  was 
still  too  young  to  commit  the  Lord's  Prayer  to  memory.  One 
morning,  just  after  she  had  triumphantly  learned  to  count  up 
to  eight,  she  joined  her  voice  with  the  others  when  the  Lord^s 
Prayer  was  repeated  by  saying  loudly:  "One,  two,  three,  four, 
five,  six,  seven,  eight.  .  .  .  One,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six, 
seven,  eight!"  I  would  hesitate  to  deny  that  even  this  crude 
participation  in  social  worship  contributed  to  religious  growth. 
For  the  social  situation  was  a  religious  one,  and  the  girl's  re- 
action, bare  though  it  was  of  definite  religious  ideas,  enriched 
her  membership  in  the  group,  and  brought  her  mind  nearer  to 
the  meaning  of  the  function  then  being  performed. 

These  facts — the  credulity  of  children's  beliefs,  the  desultory 
associations  that  cluster  therein,  and  the  imitative  origin  of 
children's  religious  acts — go  far  toward  accounting  for  the  am- 
biguous or  even  negative  attitude  that  largely  prevails  among 
adults  with  respect  to  the  religious  life  of  children.  Besides, 
we  are  just  now  reacting  against  two  types  of  religious  work 
with  them,  the  formal  or  catechetical  type,  and  the  revival  or 
conversion-experience  type.  If  these  are  the  only  practicable 
ways  of  promoting  spiritual  life  in  children,  then  indeed  we  must 
^  look  for  skepticism  as  to  genuine  spiritual  life  much  before 
adolescence.  It  is  not  enough  to  show  that  children  accept 
the  idea  of  God,  join  in  religious  practices,  and  make  an  emo- 
tional response  to  revivalistic  suggestion.     The  deeper  question 


CHILDREN'S  FAITH  141 

concerns  a  life  of  faith  properly  so  called.  This  implies  not 
merely  belief  and  imitation,  but  also  emotional  satisfaction, 
and  motivation  of  conduct  without  feverish  excesses — in  short, 
a  personal  realization  or  experience  in  a  natural  life.  Does  this 
exist  in  the  small  child  ? 

Is  there  a  special  religious  instinct?  If  children — adults, 
too,  for  that  matter — are  to  have  vital  religious  experience  as 
distinguished  from  doctrinal  assent,  imitation,  and  emotional 
forcing,  it  must  doubtless  have  a  basis  in  instinct.  Religious 
educators  therefore  have  compelling  reason  to  inquire  whether 
there  is  a  specifically  religious  instinct,  that  is,  a  universal  in- 
born readiness  to  respond  in  some  specific  religious  manner  to 
particular,  definable  situations.  If  there  is,  then  the  work  of 
religious  education  consists  fundamentally  in  creating  just 
these  situations  and  placing  children  in  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  there  is  no  specific  religious  instinct,  but  if  religious 
response  consists  rather  in  a  particular  direction  and  organiza- 
tion of  the  various  instinctive  capacities  for  social  living,  then 
religious  education  does  not  have  to  create  situations  or  invent 
special  stimuli,  but  to  utilize  in  appropriate  ways  the  every- 
day human  relations  of  the  child.  The  alternatives  may  be 
roughly  suggested  by  asking  whether  religious  experience  is 
apart  from,  or  a  part  of  our  experience  of  one  another.^ 

It  is  not  possible  in  this  place  to  go  farther  toward  answering 
this  question  than  merely  to  recite  conclusions  from  the  general 
psychology  of  religion.  Of  the  naturalness  of  religion  there  is 
of  course  no  question.  It  is  not  an  invention;  it  is  not  an  im- 
position of  some  upon  others;  its  early  appearance  in  the  race, 
its  universality,  its  persistence,  and  the  way  in  which  it  is 
interfused  with  all  sorts  of  human  affairs,  are  conclusive  on  this 
point.  This  interfusion  gives  us,  in  fact,  a  clew  to  the  sense 
in  which  religion  is  natural.  It  appears  historically  as  a  living 
out,  intensely  and  insistently,  of  the  interests  that  seem  im- 
portant, particularly  the  interests  that  gather  about  the  life 

1  If  my  purpose  were  not  merely  to  identify  the  thing,  but  also  to  deflne 
it  with  philosophical  precision,  I  should  of  course  suggest  that  our  religious 
experience  may  possibly  be,  not  a  part  of  our  experience  of  one  another,  but  a 
whole,  of  which  oui'  human  fellowships  are  parts  or  phases. 


142  CHILDREN'S  FAITH 

of  men  in  societies,  and  as  a  tendency  to  organize  and  unify 
these  interests.  It  is  not  an  aside,  or  a  luxury,  or  any  other 
sort  of  addition  to  the  common  Hfe,  but  just  life  most  deter- 
mined to  fulfil  itself  to  the  utmost.  There  is  here  no  trace  of 
an  instinct  that  functions  by  itself,  but  only  of  a  tendency 
within  the  instincts  taken  as  a  whole.^ 

This  general  conclusion  can  be  made  more  specific  by  reverting 
to  the  analysis  of  man's  social  nature  in  the  last  chapter.  What 
is  most  characteristic  of  the  religious  consciousness  is  closely 
related,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  general  tendency  to  become 
personal  selves  in  a  society  of  such  selves,  and  on  the  other 
hand  to  the  parental  instinct,  which  plays  such  a  distinctive 
part  in  individuating  us  and  socializing  us.  Faith  in  God  has 
impulsive  roots  in  desires  for  a  sufficient  and  certain  supply  of 
the  things  that  men  want,  in  the  instinct  that  causes  a  man  to 
identify  his  own  wants  and  welfare  with  those  of  another,  and 
in  the  human  way  of  taking  our  ultimate  values  as  our  ultimate 
reals.  What  is  most  significant  for  our  present  discussion  is 
that  gods  have  been  to  their  worshippers  not  only  a  security 
for  goods  of  all  kinds,  but  particularly  a  security  for  the  goods 
that  are  socially  sought  and  enjoyed,  and  that  gods  have  been 
likewise  a  spontaneous  and  last  term  in  fellowship  or  social 
unity.  In  the  divine  the  social  principle  itself  achieves  such 
objectivity  and  finality  as  the  existing  level  of  social  life  can 
appreciate.  The  tribal  god,  the  national  god,  and  the  Universal 
Father,  all  have  this  relation  to  our  fundamental  social  impulses. 

The  child^s  own  parental  instinct  furnishes  a  natural 
basis  for  early  appreciation  of  divine  fatherhood.  On  the 
surface  of  the  matter  it  is  plain  that  whatever  capacity  a  child 
has  for  responding  to  the  Christian  evangel  of  the  fatherhood  of 
God  is  at  least  parallel  to  filial  attitudes  toward  one's  earthly 
parents.  We  are  now  ready,  in  view  of  the  last  section,  to  say 
that  it  is  not  parallel,  but  identical.  Moreover,  in  view  of  our 
analysis  of  filial  affection  in  the  last  chapter,  it  now  appears 
that  children  can  make  a  vital  response  to  the  Christian  God 

1  Readers  who  desire  to  pursue  these  considerations  further  will  find  them 
fully  developed  in  my  Psychology  of  Religion,  especially  chaps.  IV  and  XIX. 


CHILDREN'S  FAITH  143 

because  they  themselves  possess  parental  instinct.  The  yearn- 
ing of  the  father  toward  the  child,  and  the  child's  appreciation 
of  this  yearning  are  qualitatively  the  same.  It  is  in  the  im- 
pulse to  father  somebody  that  the  child's  Christian  experience 
begins.  We  love  God  only  when  we  take  his  point  of  view, 
and  we  can  take  his  point  of  view  only  through  some  experience 
of  our  own  in  which  we  actually  exercise  godlike  interest  in 
another. 

In  order  to  teach  children  of  kindergarten  age  the  love  and 
care  of  the  Heavenly  Father,  the  Sunday-school  teacher  of 
to-day  is  likely  to  use  as  a  part  of  her  material  the  care  of 
father-bird  and  mother-bird  for  their  offspring.  How  does 
bird  lore  lead  toward  religion?  Does  the  mind  of  such  small 
children  construe  divine  fatherhood  analytically,  by  means  of 
an  analogy  with  feathered  parenthood  ?  Or,  does  an  induction 
from  different  instances  of  parental  care  lead  the  heart  up  to 
universal  fatherhood?  Far  different  from  either  of  these  is 
the  emotional  logic  of  the  kindergarten  age.  What  happens  is 
that  the  child  instinctively  assumes  a  parental  attitude  toward 
the  helpless  birdlings  that  have  been  brought  to  his  attention, 
and  thereby,  nascently  entering  into  the  fatherhood  purpose, 
he  grasps  the  meaning  of  divine  love. 

It  is  easy,  and  educationally  most  appropriate,  to  awaken 
in  small  children  a  sentiment  of  gratitude  to  the  Heavenly 
Father.  What,  then,  is  gratitude?  Since  it  is  an  attitude 
that  one  can  take  toward  another  who  is  older,  stronger,  and 
not  suffering,  it  appears  at  first  sight  to  have  no  connection  with 
the  instinct  that  leads  a  child  to  fondle  dolls  and  pet  animals 
and  smaller  children.  But  A.  F.  Shand  has  shown  that  gratitude 
involves  some  realization  of  what  the  kindness  of  a  benefactor 
has  cost  him,  together  with  desire  to  requite  this  cost.^  Grati- 
tude is  not  mere  jubilation;  it  contains  also  a  tender  element. 
This  tenderness,  as  our  discussion  has  shown,  and  as  McDougall 
holds,2  originates  in  parental  instinct.  McDougall  is  of  the 
opinion  that  moral  indignation  originates  at  the  same  point. 

»  Chap.  XVI  of  G.  F.  Stout,  Groundwork  of  Psychology'  (New  York,  1903). 
>W.  McDougall,  Social  Psychology  (Boston,  1909),  pp.  66-81. 


144  CHILDREN'S  FAITH 

No  doubt  it  will  seem  odd  to  trace  pity,  gratitude,  indigna- 
tion, longing  for  justice  and  equality,  and  a  child's  fondness  for 
dolls  and  pets  to  one  and  the  same  source,  even  that  in  us  that 
makes  us  see  worlds  in  the  smile  of  our  own  offspring.  But 
thither  the  facts  lead.  They  are  of  immense  consequence  for 
all  moral  and  religious  education.  For  in  them  we  find  not  only 
evidence  of  capacity  for  moral  and  religious  life  in  early  child- 
hood, but  also  the  particular  kinds  of  seed  for  which  the  young 
mind  is  ready. 

Other  instincts,  of  course,  have  a  part.  Fears  drive  the  child 
to  sheltering  arms.  Curiosity  blends  with  the  rest.  G.  E. 
Dawson  infers  from  children's  questions  that  the  "instinct  for 
causality"  is  a  principal  factor  in  child-religion,^  and  Earl  Barnes 
looks  upon  the  insistent  who's  and  why's  of  the  young  mind  as 
signs  of  a  theological  interest.^  This  interpretation  seems, 
however,  to  be  made  under  the  influence  of  the  outworn  dogmat- 
ism that  confuses  religion  with  doctrine  or  philosophy.  When- 
ever the  causal  interest  is  central  in  the  child  mind,  the  appro- 
priate category  is  science  rather  than  religion.  This  is  the 
parent's  opportunity  to  start  the  young  intellect  upon  a  cor- 
rectly scientific  analysis  of  the  world.  Religion  gains  nothing, 
but  loses  much,  through  the  well-intentioned  answer,  "God 
did  it,"  to  questions  that  we  adults  answer  to  ourselves  in  terms 
of  science.^ 

It  has  been  said  that  children  must  first  think  of  nature 
after  the  fashion  of  mythology.  Dawson  even  makes  animism 
an  instinct  of  childhood.^    If  this  be  so,  the  precept,  "Never 

1  The  Child  and  His  Religion  (Chicago,  1909),  p.  38. 

2  Studies  in  Education,  II,  1902,  p.  287. 

3  To  Professor  Dawson's  precious  collection  of  children's  questions,  I  should 
like  to  add  this  one  from  a  boy  of  about  five:  "Mother,  who  weis  my  mamma 
before  you  were?"  Lack  of  space  prevents  me  from  discussing  the  incau- 
tious  use  of  the  term  "instinct"  in  Dawson's  book,  as  "instinct  for  causality" 
and  "instinct  of  immortality."  The  naturalness  of  child  religion,  moreover, 
seems  to  mean  for  him  that  religion  is  preformed,  even  to  specific  beliefs, 
whereas  the  growth  of  mind  is  not  primarily  from  one  set  of  definite  ideas  to 
another  but  from  the  indefinite  toward  the  definite.  On  this  point,  see  Irving 
King,  The  Psychology  of  Child  Development  (Chicago,  1903),  p.  243.  An 
analysis  of  Dawson's  cases  will  show  that,  though  the  children  in  question  re- 
ceived little  or  no  formal  religious  instruction,  they  were  nevertheless  under 
the  infiuence  of  the  religious  ideas  of  their  elders. 

*0p,  cit.,  pp.  32  ff. 


CHILDREN'S  FAITH  145  y 

teach  as  true  anything  that  must  afterward  be  unlearned," 
is  unwise,  perhaps  impossible  of  application.  But  I  find  no 
adequate  evidence  that  small  children  are  incapable  of  employ- 
ing the  causal  category  in  the  same  manner  as  adults.  Least 
of  all  do  the  facts  indicate  that  there  is  a  definite  stage  of 
spontaneous  animistic  belief  in  Tylor's  sense  of  animism. 
Rather,  we  find  a  continuous  mental  movement  from  indefinite 
toward  definite  ideas,  and  from  emotional  thinking  toward 
abstraction  and  objectivity.  Not,  then,  from  experience  of 
nature,  mythologically  conceived,  but  from  the  experience  of  a 
present  social  reality  in  the  family,  should  we  expect  the  Chri§r-^ 
tian  idea  of  God  to  grow. 

A  child  can,  to  use  BushnelPs  words,  "grow  up  a  Chris- 
tian, and  never  know  himself  as  being  otherwise."  What- 
ever be  the  case  with  other  religions,  the  Christian  religion, 
which  finds  the  whole  meaning  and  destiny  of  man  in  divine 
fatherhood  and  human  brotherhood,  is  the  flowering  of  a  par- 
ticular instinct  that  is  active  from  infancy  onward.  To  Ter- 
tullian's  argument  that  the  soul  is  naturally  Christian  we  may 
now  add  that  the  child  is  naturally  Christian.  To  the  Chris- 
tian idea  of  the  All-Father  the  response  (unless  the  child  has 
already  been  wounded  and  scarred  by  the  unparental  conduct 
of  others)  is  positive,  free,  and  vital.  Children  love  and  trust 
him;  they  struggle  to  obey  him  by  kindly  conduct;  they  desire 
to  help  him  in  his  work;  they  are  grateful  for  his  gifts.  This 
is  Christian  experience. 

It  is  a  tender  thing,  easily  distorted,  easily  blighted.  It 
must  have  human  fellowship  in  order  to  flourish.  Only  in  and 
through  some  human  godlikeness  that  sustains  what  is  parental^ 
in  us  does  any  of  us  know  the  Father.  Here  is  the  deep  meaning, 
for  childhood  as  well  as  for  maturity,  of  the  surpassing  love 
wherewith  Jesus  faced  an  unloving  world.  The  spirit,  the  acts, 
many  of  the  words  of  Jesus  appeal  to  little  ones,  to  what  is 
elemental  in  them.  Just  as  the  Jewish  children  who  heard  him 
say :  "  Let  them  come  to  me,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  belongs 
to  such  as  they  are,"  must  have  clung  to  him  and  nestled  in 
his  arms,  so  the  children  of  to-day,  imaginatively  realizing  him. 


146  CHILDREN'S  FAITH 

make  him  their  actual  leader,  their  helper,  who  saves  them  from 
their  own  unsocial  impulses.  The  church,  as  far  as  in  its  re- 
lations to  children  it  is  really  the  church  of  Christ,  makes  the 
same  appeal  to  children  and  receives  the  same  kind  of  response. 
The  church  belongs  to  children  just  as  their  fathers  and  mothers 
belong  to  them;  and  children  belong  to  the  church  just  as  they 
belong  to  families.  That  is,  ideally  they  belong  to  the  church, 
from  the  standpoint  of  Jesus  they  belong  to  it,  from  the  stand- 
point of  their  own  social  capacities  they  belong  to  it.  But 
these  capacities  are  as  sensitive  as  they  are  beautiful;  and  there 
are  contrary  capacities,  too;  and  habit-forming  begins  at 
birth.  In  order  that  a  child  may  grow  up  a  Christian  and  never 
know  himself  as  being  otherwise  he  must  have  co-operation  from 
those  who  have  the  spirit  of  Christ.  That  is,  the  child  must 
have  social  education  upon  the  Christian  plane. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  RELIGIOUS  LIMITATIONS  OF  CHILDREN 

The  respective  educational  consequences  of  a  theory  of 
moral  continuity  in  child  growth  and  a  theory  of  moral  dis- 
continuity. The  view  of  child  nature  that  has  now  been 
sketched  is  different  from  certain  opinions  that  are  widely  held 
at  the  present  moment.  The  last  two  chapters  have  shown  that, 
though  antisocial  instincts  are  active  in  the  early  years,  socially 
constructive  ones  also  are  present,  and  that  even  the  par- 
ticular instinct  out  of  which  spring  the  finest  and  most  difficult 
things  in  social  progress  begins  its  functions  in  infancy.  Here 
we  found  natural  capacity  for  entering  into  the  great  and  fun- 
damental motives  of  the  Christian  religion,  fatherhood  and 
brotherhood,  and  therefore  a  natural  basis  for  Christian  educa- 
tion. 

If  this  view  is  well  founded,  there  is  no  necessary  break,  in 
moral  quality,  between  the  life  of  an  adult  Christian  and  that 
of  a  child  who  receives  Christian  nurture.  The  necessary  dif- 
ference between  them  concerns  their  respective  range  of  experi- 
ence, firmness  of  habit,  and  extent  of  foresight.  An  adult  who 
is  already  well  trained  knows  better  how  to  be  kind  to  a  dog,  a 
baby,  a  tuberculous  family,  a  foreigner,  a  laboring  man,  a  capi- 
talist, a  wife.  With  this  wider  knowledge  of  human  relations 
there  goes,  of  course,  the  possibility  of  profounder  emotional 
appreciation  of  the  character  of  God.  Moreover,  the  well- 
trained  adult  Christian  has  so  many  times  resisted  his  unsocial 
instincts,  and  indulged  his  social  ones,  and  he  has  so  often  ex- 
perienced the  joy  of  Christian  fellowship,  that  habit  forming 
has  borne  its  fruit  in  the  weakened  power  of  some  temptations, 
the  actual  extinction  of  others,  and  relative  ease  in  carrying 

147 


148  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

high  impulses  into  effect.  This  difference  between  childhood 
and  maturity  is  great,  but  it  is  not  a  moral  break.  To  attain 
Christian  maturity,  a  child  needs  only  to  go  on  exercising  more 
and  more  broadly,  steadily,  and  intelligently  certain  impulses 
of  childhood  itself.^ 

But  some  voices  are  saying  that  childhood  Is  essentially  ego- 
istic, and  that  genuine  unselfishness  must  wait  for  adolescence. 
If  this  be  true,  we  must  postpone  religious  education  in  any  vital 
sense  until  adolescence,  while  through  childhood  we  allow 
motives  to  grow  that  must  later  be  counteracted.  This  would 
be  a  saltatory  education — education  by  a  leap  into  society  as 
contrasted  with  continuous  growth  within  society  as  a  member 
of  it.  The  widest-spread  doctrine  of  this  type  is  the  recapitula- 
tion theory  that  is  taught  by  G.  Stanley  Hall  and  his  pupils. 
Another  instance,  which  it  will  be  convenient  to  discuss  first, 
is  Ames's  chapter  on  "Religion  and  Childhood." 2 

Taking  religion  to  be  identical  with  "the  fullest  and  most 
intense  social  consciousness,"^  which  is  about  equivalent  to 
the  consciousness  of  the  socially  maturest  persons,  Ames  finds 
children  profoundly  deficient  in  capacity  for  religion.  He 
asserts:  (1)  That  up  to  two  and  a  half  or  three  years  human 
beings  are  non-religious,  non-moral,  and  non-personal  ;^  (2)  That 
it  is  impossible  for  a  child  under  the  age  of  nine  to  pass  in  any 
considerable  degree  beyond  the  non-religious  and  non-moral 
attitude;^  (3)  That  the  child  has  no  "religious  nature";^ 
(4)  That  "The  social  feeling  of  adolescence  is  original,  inner, 
and  urgent,"^  and  that  in  adolescence  "Religion  arises  nat- 
urally,  being  an  inherent  and  intimate  phase  of  the  social 

1  In  some  of  my  earlier  writings  I  emphasized  the  notion  that  a  child  is  not 
a  diminutive  adult,  but  something  qualitatively  as  well  as  quantitatively  dif- 
ferent. Doctrinal  systems,  I  said,  even  though  abbreviated  and  expressed 
in  words  of  one  syllable,  do  not  fit.  A  small  child's  spontaneous  interest 
does  not  go  out  to  the  Trinity,  but  to  dolls,  dogs,  hobby-horses,  or  a  game 
of  tag.  Moreover,  some  human  relations,  as  that  of  conjugal  affection, 
one  does  not  appreciate  imtil  the  sexual  instinct  ripens.  Finally,  adult  stand- 
ards of  right  and  wrong  do  not  fit  children,  and  attempts  to  make  them  fit 
do  injustice  by  reason  of  the  gap  between  rewards  and  punishments  and 
anything  that  the  child  can  imderstand.  In  this  sense  I  still  maintain  that 
a  child  is  not  a  diminutive  adult,  but  qualitatively  different.  But  this  does 
not  imply  the  kind  of  break  in  instinctive  social  capacities,  and  in  social 
education,  that  is  in  question  in  the  above  paragraph. 

2E.  S.  Ames,  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience  (Boston,  1910),  chap.  XI. 

».P.  197.  «  Pp.- 198,  209.  '  P.  209.  «  P.  209.  »  P.  222. 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  149 

consciousness."^     "For   the  individual,  religion   originates   in 
youth."  2 

If  all  this  be  true,  man  has  a  religious  nature,  original,  inner, 
and  urgent,  which  clearly  makes  its  appearance  with  adoles- 
cence. It  is  denied  of  young  children  because  of  their  sup- 
posed lack  of  capacity  for  social  response.^  If,  now,  we  should 
discover  that  childhood  is  not  set  off  from  adolescence  by  any 
such  social  incompetence,  it  would  follow  that  children  also, 
in  their  measure,  are  religious  by  original  nature.  In  a  subse- 
quent section  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  the  instinct  of  sex, 
which  is  the  distinctive  basis  of  adolescent  phenomena,  is  not 
equal  to  the  social  task,  which  is  nothing  less  than  the  social 
transformation  of  the  mind,  that  Ames  and  others  lay  upon  it. 
Meantime  I  would  set  over  against  the  doctrine  of  the  social 
incapacity  of  childhood  the  evidence,  already  adduced,  of  the 
early  appearance  of  parental  instinct. 

The  recapitulation  theory  is  a  special  and  recent  form  of  an 
idea,  long  held,  that  there  is  some  sort  of  parallel  between  child 
life  and  the  "  childhood  of  the  race."  That  there  is  a  consider- 
able degree  of  similarity  between  them  is  clear.  Both  the  race 
and  the  individual  show  a  movement  of  mind  from  immediate 
ends  toward  remote  ones;  from  immediate  data  of  sense  toward 
thought  structures  of  greater  and  greater  complexity;  from 
the  impulsiveness  of  instinct  and  of  crowd  action  toward  self- 
control  and  social  deliberation;  from  a  narrower  to  a  broader 
range  of  social  regard.  A  consequence  for  education  is  that 
young  children  take  the  freshest  interest  in,  and  are  best  trained 
by,  objects  and  processes  that  correspond  in  simplicity  and  in 
sensuous  appeal  to  the  objects  and  processes  with  which  early 
man  occupied  himself,  and  that  as  children  grow  older  their 
ability  to  be  interested  in  the  complexities  of  civilization  grows 
also.  A  child  of  six  takes  voraciously  to  Bopp's  descriptions 
of  primitive  man's  struggles  with  dangerous  beasts;  how  old 
must  one  be,  the  teacher  has  to  ask,  before  the  struggles  of  the 
Roundheads  with  the  Cavaliers  arrest  and  hold  attention  ? 

iP.  249.  2  p.    214. 

•Ames's  overcaution,  not  to  seem  to  attribute  a  religious  "instinct"  to 
primitive  men,  suggests  the  possibility  that  I  have  taken  too  literally  his  state- 
ments concerning  adolescence.     See  pp.  49,  50. 


150  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

The  special  form  that  the  recapitulation  theory  gives  to  this 
old  idea  is  as  follows:  (1)  The  theory  asserts  that  the  growth 
of  the  individual  mind  shows  a  succession  of  definite  forms  that 
correspond  in  motive,  content,  and  order  of  emergence  to  defi- 
nite stages  in  racial  evolution;  (2)  That  this  succession  in  the 
individual  is  not  determined  by  anything  in  his  environment, 
such  as  his  associations,  but  is  predetermined  as  a  set  of  suc- 
cessively ripening  instincts;  (3)  That  the  proper  mental  and 
moral  food  for  each  period  of  child  growth  is  to  be  gathered 
from  the  level  of  the  instinct  then  in  action,  not  from  later  and 
higher  levels  of  culture.^ 

The  popular,  and  here  and  there  the  literary,  interpretation 
of  recapitulation  runs  to  the  effect  that  children,  or  at  least 
boys,  are  different  from  adults  in  the  same  way  that  savagery 
is  different  from  civilization,  savagery  being  interpreted  in  terms 
of  its  coarseness  and  of  its  relative  disregard  for  the  pains  and 
the  pleasures  of  men  and  of  animals. 

Before  examining  the  grounds  for  this  theory,  let  us  note 
its  educational  implications.  At  each  period  of  growth,  says 
the  theory,  feed  the  particular  instinct  that  is  then  dominant. 
The  child's  goodness  at  the  time,  and  his  progress  toward 
mature  goodness,  are  to  be  measured  by  the  fulness  with  which 
he  enters  into  the  spirit,  the  aims,  and  the  characteristic  activi- 
ties of  the  lower  order  of  society  that  his  then  dominant  instinct 
reflects.  That  is — if  we  press  the  point  to  the  utmost — we 
are  to  educate  children  for  family,  church,  and  state,  not  by 
enlarging  as  much  as  we  can  children's  present  participation 
in  them,  but  by  withholding  and  postponing  common  life  on 
these  levels.  Social  segregation  of  children  with  children,  and 
of  adults  with  adults,  would  then  be  the  preliminary  condition 
of  educational  efficiency.  If  we  ask  how,  then,  children  are 
ever  to  acquire  an  Interest  In  the  higher  social  organizations 
and  standards,  and  how  adjustment  to  these  standards  is  to 
be  effected,  the  answer  is  that  adolescence  brings  a  spontaneous 
impulse  to  something  like  a  conversion  from  egoism  to  altruism. 
This  leap  Into  the  new  life  will  take  place  through  the  innate, 
1  References  to  sources  are  postponed  to  the  Classified  Bibliography. 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  151 

internal  forces  of  the  individual,  it  is  assumed,  if  only  appro- 
priate material  for  these  forces  to  act  upon  is  present. 

If  nature  has  provided  for  social  continuity  in  the  growth  of 
a  child,  then  the  process  of  social  education  can  be  sketched  as 
follows,  with  the  contrasting  consequences  of  the  recapitulation 
theory  stated  point  by  point. 

(1)  Theory  of  continuity:  Social  education  first  sees  to  it  that 
the  child  is  provided  with  wealth  of  human  association,  association 
with  adults  as  well  as  with  children.  To  this  kind  of  experience 
various  instinctive  responses  are  made  by  the  child,  one  or  more 
of  them  social  in  a  finally  valid  sense,  that  is,  in  the  same  sense 
in  which  the  best  conduct  of  adults  is  social.  The  teacher  picks 
out  these  socially  valid  responses,  and  endeavors  to  give  them  such 
a  distinctive  place  in  the  child's  experience  (by  means  of  satisfac- 
tions associated  with  them)  that  they  will  have  a  permanent  in- 
fluence upon  his  character. 

Theory  of  recapitulation:  Provide  the  child  with  plenty  of  things, 
animal  pets,  and  other  children;  this  is  the  chief  and  essential 
educational  service  that  adults  can  render  at  the  beginning. 

(2)  Theory  of  continuity:  The  teacher  now  has  the  task  of  pro- 
moting repetition  of  these  particularly  wholesome  responses,  and 
of  preventing  repetition  of  the  contrary  ones.  Therefore  condi- 
tions are  so  arranged  that  discomfort  accompanies  the  latter,  and 
satisfaction  the  former,  especially  shared  satisfactions,  and  these 
conditions  are  steadily  repeated  as  often  as  the  situations  that 
tend  to  call  out  the  responses  recur.  The  result  is  the  forma- 
tion of  certain  social  habits,  and  suppression  of  unsocial  instincts 
by  lack  of  exercise. 

Theory  of  recapitulation:  The  instincts  are  given  right  of  way, 
with  no  such  careful  selection  by  the  teacher.  For  it  is  held  that 
the  exercise  of  an  instinct  on  its  own  plane  makes  it  not  more 
attractive,  but  less  so,  at  the  next  stage  of  growth.  Let  the 
teacher  provide  plenty  of  material  for  the  expression  of  the  in- 
stincts that  are  dominant. 

(3)  Theory  of  continuity:  As  the  child's  social  contacts  widen, 
his  social  responses  become  more  and  more  complicated,  and  his 
capacity  for  continuity  in  social  relations  increases.  The  teacher 
carries  into  each  fresh  situation  the  same  principle  of  selection 
and  of  habit  forming  as  before,  but  attempts  to  organize  the  whole- 


152  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

some  responses  In  the  form  of  more  and  more  systematic  and  broad 
co-operation — co-operation  of  children  with  children,  and  of 
children  with  adults.  Therefore  the  policy  of  the  teacher  is  to 
admit  the  children  to  a  part  in  adult  social  enterprises. 

Theory  of  recapitulation:  Organizations  of  children  with  chil- 
dren on  their  own  plane  are  sufficient  for  social  education.  Let 
children  settle  their  social  relations  to  one  another  by  the  clash 
of  opposing  instincts. 

(4)  Theory  of  continuity:  Since  the  problem  of  society  is  to 
produce  free  individuality  rather  than  mechanized  conduct,  and 
also  to  improve  society  itself  rather  than  repeat  its  own  perform- 
ances, the  teacher  does  not  stop  with  a  set  of  habits  that  con- 
form to  a  set  of  ethical  rules,  but  goes  on  to  awaken  reflective 
intelligence  with  respect  to  what  one  is  doing,  why  it  should  or 
should  not  be  done,  and  how  it  can  be  improved,  that  is,  made 
mutually  more  satisfactory.  Thus,  to  instinct  and  habit,  analyti- 
cal reason  is  added,  and  genuinely  voluntary  purposes  are  formed. 
Material  for  this  analysis,  which  proceeds  by  comparison,  is  drawn 
not  only  from  child  life  and  from  cruder  stages  of  adult  society, 
but  also  from  the  best  that  is  in  contemporary  social  institutions. 
Thus,  intellectually  as  well  as  affectively  (in  respect  to  satisfac- 
tions and  dissatisfactions)  the  child  is  kept  in  growing  fellowship 
with  his  elders. 

Theory  of  recapitulation:  The  child's  social  insight  will  grow 
most  certainly  and  normally  if  he  is  kept  in  rich  intellectual 
fellowship  with  culture  epochs  of  a  lower  order  until  the  middle  or 
later  years  of  adolescence  bring  him  face  to  face  with  the  society 
that  he  is  about  to  enter  as  a  full  member. 

(5)  Theory  of  continuity:  The  analysis  of  situations  and  of 
responses  is  so  guided  that  it  not  only  transforms  instinct  acts 
already  habitual  with  the  pupil  into  voluntary  purposes,  but  also 
leads  the  pupil  to  ask  what  he  himself  really  wants,  and  so  to 
imagine  and  desire  ideal  good.  An  ideal  is  a  more  distant  goal  by 
reference  to  which  we  judge  our  particular  purposes,  and  correct 
them.  The  process  of  idealizing,  when  it  is  not  arrested  In  mere 
sentimentality,  goes  on  to  the  identification  of  one's  own  weal 
and  woe  with  the  fate  of  the  ideal,  and  thus  makes  the  purpose 
of  progress  a  constituent  or  modifier  of  all  other  purposes.  Society 
thus  trains  her  pupils  to  re-create  their  educator. 

Theory  of  recapitulation:  The  upspringing  of  moral  self-con- 
sciousness will  be  a  part  of  the  broad  emotional  agitation  that 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  153 

ushers  in  the  maturity  of  the  sexual  instinct.  Youth  will  dream 
dreams,  and  see  visions,  and  acquire  reforming  fervor  as  a  phase 
of  instinctive  adolescent  longing. 

The  contrast  between  these  two  conceptions  of  the  attainment 
of  moral  self-consciousness  is  not  slight.  One  of  them  makes 
it  an  achievement,  the  other  makes  it  an  eruption  of  volcanic  fire; 
one  makes  it  a  discriminating  attitude  that  accompanies  analysis, 
the  other  makes  it  an  emotional  unrest  that  has  yet  to  become 
acquainted  with  its  appropriate  objects;  one  puts  at  its  dis- 
posal, in  the  whole  gradual  process  of  its  upspringing,  the  moral 
experience  of  the  race,  the  other  lets  the  individual  meet  himself 
in  the  isolation  in  which  fears,  and  conceits,  and  hasty  choices  are 
born. 

This  is  the  logic  of  the  contrasting  theories.  To  what  extent 
the  practice  of  teachers  follows  the  logic  of  either  theory  is 
another  matter.  Let  there  be  no  misunderstanding  as  to  the 
purpose  of  this  analysis;  it  aims  merely  to  make  the  elements 
of  the  problem  stand  out  unmistakably.  Another  possible  mis- 
understanding may  grow  out  of  the  fact  that  the  analysis  is 
presented  in  the  form  of  a  numerical  series.  These  five  points 
in  the  theory  of  continuity  do  not  represent  so  many  successive 
steps,  to  be  taken  at  successive  periods  of  the  child's  growth, 
but  five  aspects  of  the  sort  of  stimulus  that  society  would 
continuously  provide  under  the  supposition  that  the  social 
growth  of  the  child  can  naturally  be  continuous  rather  than 
broken.  The  recapitulation  theory  Implies  that  at  each  stage 
of  growth  the  child  leaves  behind  the  self-and-society  that  was 
his  at  the  preceding  stage.  But  the  theory  of  continuity, 
holding  that  the  social  growth  of  mind  consists  In  defining 
what  was  at  the  outset  relatively  Indefinite,  In  stabilizing  what 
was  relatively  unstable,  in  differentiating  what  was  relatively 
simple,  and  in  bringing  impulse  under  the  control  of  permanent 
choices,  implies  that  the  child  carries  his  self-and-society  along 
through  the  years,  enriching  It  as  he  goes. 

The  positive  service  that  the  theory  of  recapitulation 
has  rendered  to  social  education.  There  is  no  mistaking  the 
fact  that,  coincident  with,  and  under  stimulus  from,  the  spread- 


154  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

ing  doctrine  of  recapitulation  a  great  awakening  began  with 
respect  to  methods  in  the  moral  training  of  boys,  and  to  a  slight 
extent  of  girls.  In  the  boys'  departments  of  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations,  in  Sunday-school  classes  and  clubs, 
in  the  general  boys'  club  movement,  and  in  camps  and  schools 
for  boys,  we  witness  something  that  has  not  only  the  zest  of 
newness,  but  also  the  zest  of  an  obvious  reality,  or  corre- 
spondence with  life  itself.  I  shall  raise  a  question  by  and  by 
as  to  the  validity  of  some  of  the  tendencies  that  have  appeared, 
but  without  doubting  that  the  new  training  is  better  than  the 
old  in  point  of  freedom  and  spontaneity,  in  point  of  initiative 
and  constructiveness,  in  the  number  of  its  contacts  with  nature, 
in  its  care  for  physical  well  being  and  for  play,  and  in  point  of 
co-operation  and  of  training  therein. 

Moral  training  of  the  individual  through  present  group 
life  on  the  natural  level  of  the  pupil — this  is  now  axiomatic 
among  educators  of  boys.  It  has  become  axiomatic  with  the 
practical  Workers  largely  because,  under  the  influence  of  the 
glittering  recapitulation  theory,  they  undertook,  as  perhaps  no 
teachers  had  ever  undertaken  before,  to  get  the  pupil's  point 
of  view,  see  through  his  eyes,  feel  wdth  him,  act  with  him. 
There  was  nothing  new,  to  be  sure,  in  the  doctrine  that  the 
teacher  must  bend  himself  to  the  pupil's  natural  interests. 
But  here  was  proclamation  of  a  supposed  law  of  the  child's 
successive  interests,  a  law  that  implied  that  children's  social 
interests  are  even,  for  the  tim^,  opposed  to  those  that  are  habit- 
ual with  the  teacher.  Here  was  a  challenge  to  the  teacher 
to  stretch  his  imagination  and  his  sympathies  as  nothing  in 
the  general  doctrine  of  interest  and  apperception  had  hereto- 
fore required  him  to  do.  Moreover,  the  study  of  boys'  gangs 
as  an  instance  of  the  supposed  recapitulation  results  in  an 
attempt  to  use  the  gang  type  of  sociality  as  an  educational 
agency.  In  order  to  use  it,  the  leader  had  to  become  a  member 
of  it,  and  be  obedient  to  laws  not  of  his  own  devising. 

This  is  too  brief  a  statement  to  represent  all  the  wide-spread 
effort  to  enter  actively  and  sincerely  into  the  realities  of  chil- 
dren's social  motives,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  indicate  ways  in 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  155 

which  the  recapitulation  theory  has  had  an  unquestionably 
vitalizing  effect  upon  moral  training.  We  need  not  stint  our 
recognition  of  this  effect  if  we  go  on  to  inquire  whether  we  have 
reached  the  end  of  the  matter.  Is  it  not  possible  that  if  we 
rigorously  apply  the  recapitulation  theory  we  shall  fix  children 
in  immature  social  motives?  Granted  that  fellowship  is  the 
basis  of  social  education,  does  It  follow  that  fellowship  is  possible 
only  on  the  basis  of  children's  crude  instinctive  social  inter- 
actions, and  not  also  on  the  basis  of  adult  enterprises?  The 
teacher  must  reach  down,  no  doubt;  is  It  certain  that  children 
should  not  be  expected  to  reach  up  ? 

Does  the  social  life  of  children  instinctively  recapit- 
ulate the  social  evolution  of  the  race?  The  only  sense  in 
which  an  answer  can  here  be  attempted  is  that  of  an  enumera- 
tion of  points  involved,  with  some  indication  of  sources  in  which 
the  positions  here  taken  are  discussed  at  greater  length. 

(1)  The  theory  took  its  start  from  supposed  traces  of  bodily 
recapitulation  in  the  embryo.  But  "the  view  .  .  .  that  em- 
bryonic development  is  essentially  a  recapitulation  of  ancestral 
history  must  be  given  up. '  '(^ 

(2)  With  reference  to  the  brain  in  particular  it  does  not  hold. 
** Man's  brain  in  general  follows  in  its  growth  a  course  enormously 
unlike  that  by  which  it  developed  in  the  race."^ 

(3)  Where  comparison  of  the  two  mental  series,  racial  and  men- 
tal, can  safely  be  made,  "what  little  is  known  is  rather  decidedly 
against  any  close  parallelism  of  the  two."  ^ 

(4)  The  sex  instinct,  which  presents  in  its  late  ripening  the  su- 
preme case  of  a  social  acceleration  of  the  individual  that  is  both 
marked  and  fairly  universal,  ripens  early  in  the  race,  but  late  in 
the  individual. 

(5)  Further — and  this  has  peculiar  weight  against  those  who 
have  relied  upon  adolescence  for  evidence  of  recapitulation — 
whereas  in  the  race  the  sex  instinct  does  not  appear  until  it  is  physi- 

1  Adam  Sedgwick,  "Embryology,"  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  11th  ed. 

2  Thomdike,  op.  cit.,  p.  255. 

s  Ibid.,  p.  256.  Thomdike's  whole  chapter  should  be  read.  An  extended 
analysis  of  both  the  biological  and  the  psychological  evidence  will  be  foimd 
in  Davidson,  P.  E.,  The  Recapitulation  Theory  and  Human  Infancy  (New  York, 
1914). 


156  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

ologlcally  employed,  in  the  individual  it  appears,  and  begins  to 
influence  social  groupings,  long  before  reproduction  is  possible. 

(6)  Parental  instinct,  as  we  have  seen  at  length,  does  not  co- 
incide, in  its  appearance  and  growth,  with  procreation  or  with 
capacity  therefor.  Here  again  an  instinct  that  has  tremendous 
social  significance  appears  earlier  in  the  individual  series  than  in  the 
racial  series. 

(7)  If  any  one  should  hold  that,  even  though  other  evidence  for 
recapitulation  be  leaky,  common  observation  of  boys  shows  them 
to  be  little  savages  anyhow,  whereas  in  adolescence  they  attain  to 
something  like  civilization,  the  following  answer  could  be  made: 
**The"  boy,  who  figures  so  largely  as  the  living  demonstration  to 
the  popular  mind,  is  a  socially  neglected  boy.  He  is  the  boy  on 
the  street;  or  the  boy  in  a  boys'  school,  removed  from  normal 
family  relationships;  or  the  boy  who  goes  to  extremes  because  he 
has  been  misunderstood  and  mishandled;  or  the  boy  who  has 
simply  lacked  suflicient  fellowship  with  older  persons  to  show 
what  he  is  socially  capable  of.  Social  capacities  do  not  sprout 
in  a  vacuum,  much  less  under  thumb-screws.  Nor  does  a  child's 
possible  social  reach  appear  until  he  has  something  to  reach 
toward.  We  need  sorely  to  realize  that  what  to  reach  toward  can 
be  revealed  to  a  boy  only  through  acquaintance  with  those  who  are 
further  advanced.  A  boy  who  lives  in  a  good  house  surrounded 
by  wholesome  things,  the  roof  of  which  covers  also  refined  and 
affectionate  parents,  may  nevertheless  be  socially  neglected,  that 
is,  lack  opportunity  to  take  the  part  that  he  is  capable  of  taking 
in  the  doings  of  his  elders.  Over  against  the  results  of  all  these 
kinds  of  neglect  stands  a  multitude  of  boys  who  have  grown  up 
in  co-operative  fellowship  with  adults,  and  as  a  consequence  have 
conducted  themselves  in  such  a  civilized  way  that  they  have  not 
attracted  attention  to  themselves.  In  short,  the  argument  from 
current  observation  unintentionally  picks  its  cases,  and  then  attrib- 
utes to  original  nature  social  limitations  that  arise  from  deficien- 
cies in  boys*  social  opportunities. 

(8)  The  evidence  from  current  observation  that  is  adduced 
in  support  of  the  theory  of  recapitulation  is  derived  almost  ex- 
clusively from  boy  life,  scarcely  at  all  from  girl  life.  Why?  In 
part,  we  need  not  doubt,  because  girls,  being  kept  in  closer  con- 
tact with  adult  life  in  the  home,  and  having  more  opportunity 
to  co-operate  with  a  parent  in  important  duties,  develop  earlier 
the  social  capacities  that  are  common  to  boys  and  girls. 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  157 

The  sociaL  significance  of  adolescence.  That  adolescence 
brings  changes  in  the  child's  social  capacities  and  spontaneous 
interests,  and  that  these  changes  are  of  momentous  consequence 
for  social  education,  no  one  will  question.  But  that  undue 
reliance  has  been  placed  upon  the  socializing  influence  of  the 
instinct  that  now  ripens  may  be  asserted  without  hesitation. 
Adolescence  offers  fresh,  unique  opportunity  for  social  educa- 
tion; but  instinct  does  not  do  the  work  of  educating.  The 
opportunity  is  unique  because:  (1)  There  is  instinctive  effort 
to  please  persons  of  the  opposite  sex.  This  regard  for  others 
may  be  extended  beyond  the  courtship  process.^  (2)  The  fact 
of  loosing  oneself  from  dependence  upon  parents  to  begin  in- 
dependent life  is  of  itself  an  assertion  of  individuality;  it  may 
become  an  incentive  to  reflective  weighing  of  life's  ethical 
alternatives;  it  may  be  the  occasion  of  great  choices.  (3)  The 
general  state  of  restlessness,  excitement,  and  general  emotional 
susceptibility  (as  for  beauty  in  nature  and  in  art)  makes  it 
comparatively  easy  to  acquire  new  interests  and  enthusiasms, 
which  may  be  highly  idealistic  and  social.  Adolescence  tends 
to  make  the  human  soil  mellow,  but  mellowness  of  soil  does 
not  determine  whether  the  harvest  shall  be  wheat  or  tares. 
(4)  More  or  less  parental  tenderness,  obviously  instinctive, 
mixes  with  sexual  instinct  in  the  attitudes  of  lovers  toward  each 
other.  On  this  compound  instinctive  basis  family  life  on  the 
highest  ethical  plane  may  be  built,  and  this  life  may  radiate  into 
community  organization  and  into  world  society. 

What   an   opportunity   is   this   for   social   education  I    But 

the  same  thing  that  makes  it  an  opportunity  for  education 

makes  it  also  an  open  road  to  evil.     The  period  of  adolescence, 

and  the  magnetism  of  its  characteristic  instinct,  fasten  upon  the 

individual  the  worst  faults  that  the  race  has  developed.     That 

criminality  here  gets  its  chief  entrance  into  the  mind  is  a  serious 

enough  fact,  but  it  is  not  the  most  serious  one.     The  profound- 

est  and  the  most  prolific  of  all  evils  in  the  world  is  the  selfish 

use  of  the  sex  instinct. 

1  Under  the  term  "courtship  process"  I  include  not  only  the  consciously 
intended  preliminaries  to  marriage,  but  also  the  preceding  years  of  taking  an 
interest  in,  and  making  oneself  interesting  to,  persons  of  the  opposite  sex. 


158  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

There  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  the  phases  of  this  evil  that 
are  prominent  in  the  public  mind.  There  are  in  addition  mo- 
mentous phases  of  it  that  the  public  thinks  nothing  about. 
Even  aside  from  all  question  of  social  vice,  social  idealisms 
that  sprout  in  childhood  and  blossom  in  youth  are  largely 
shrivelled  by  conjugal  experience  following  an  undisciplined 
adolescence.  Selfishness  in  this  relation  means  arrest  of 
social  capacity,  a  hardening  of  the  personality  that  is  likely 
to  affect  all  the  relations  that  one  has  with  one's  fellows.  It 
inevitably  affects  the  children  in  the  family,  though  they  know 
nothing  of  its  existence.  For  selfishness  in  the  conjugal  rela- 
tion is  per  se  the  drying  up  of  tender  regard  for  the  personality 
of  another,  and  tender  regard  springs  from  parental  instinct. 
One  cannot  henceforth  be  a  whole  parent  to  one's  children, 
much  less  train  them  for  future  parenthood. 

The  canker  of  this  selfishness  spreads  directly  also,  not  merely 
through  one's  children,  to  relations  between  persons  in  the  larger 
social  units.  Tender  regard  for  the  personality  of  another, 
which  is  none  other  than  justice  in  one's  soul — this,  wrought 
into  habit  by  self-discipline  in  the  most  intimate  association  of 
husband  and  wife,  forms  an  excellent  background  and  prepara- 
tion for  the  recognition  of  personality  in  business  and  in  civic 
affairs,  while  absence  of  this  soul's  justice  at  home  bodes  ill  for 
the  world  outside.  Granted  that  there  is  no  absolute  guarantee 
that  a  social  quality  that  is  habitual  in  one  human  relation 
will  be  transferred  to  different  relations;  granted  that  we  are 
bundles  of  inconsistencies;  nevertheless  it  is  a  safe  assump- 
tion that  what  my  family  is  to  me  can  easily  affect  my  valuation 
of  the  family  life  of  my  employees,  and  that  in  the  by-and- 
large  this  effect  will  occur  frequently  in  a  large  society.  Justice 
in  the  conjugal  relation  will  tend,  in  the  long  run,  to  inject 
domestic  considerations  into  the  wage  problem,  the  problems 
of  civic  betterment,  the  problem  of  industrial  disputes,  and 
the  problem  of  war. 

When  we  consider  all  this  in  addition  to  the  vice  and  criminal- 
ity that  get  their  impulse  from  the  adolescent  condition  of 
mind,  we  shall  see  that  incalculable  evil  and  incalculable  good 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  159 

depend  upon  the  direction  that  is  given  to  the  instinct  that 
comes  to  maturity  in  this  period.  The  sex  instinct  is  not  self- 
directing  toward  the  ends  of  just  society — this  is  evident. 
Like  all  other  useful  instincts,  it  requires  training.  It  requires 
training  more,  possibly,  than  any  other,  and  not  merely  in  the 
way  of  restraint  because  of  its  possibilities  for  evil,  but  also 
in  the  way  of  positive  development  into  a  defined  and  noble 
social  purpose.  Reliance  for  the  right  social  fruitage  of  adoles- 
cence is  not  to  be  placed  upon  even  the  fine  spontaneities  of 
youth,  but  upon  educational  foresight  and  skill. 

The  social  limitations  of  adolescence  appear,  too,  from  the 
fact  that  it  accomplishes  its  full  instinctive  work  under  various 
social  systems,  under  any  system,  in  fact,  that  permits  be- 
tween the  sexes  the  relations  of  courtship  and  marriage.  The 
primary  impulses  of  youth  find  outlet  under  any  form  of  govern- 
ment; at  every  level  of  social  organization,  from  the  savage 
tribe  to  the  great  modern  state;  under  social  institutions  that 
range  through  the  whole  scale  from  slavery  to  Industrial  democ- 
racy. What  kind  of  society  we  shall  have  depends  In  no  appre- 
ciable degree  upon  the  sex  Instinct  as  such,  but  upon  the  place 
it  occupies  in  a  great  complex  of  instincts,  habits,  assumptions, 
and  ideals.^ 

The  relation  of  adolescence  to  childhood*s  social  habits. 
The  irruption  of  a  fresh  instinct  that  profoundly  stirs  the  whole 
psychophysical  organism  offers  a  specially  favorable  oppor- 
tunity for  the  basal  educational  process  of  habit  making  and 
habit  breaking.  One  notices  things  not  noticed  before,  reacts 
to  them,  experiences  satisfactions  and  dissatisfactions  of  new 
varieties,  and  presto  !  the  youth  has  "taken  to"  fiction,  poetry, 
history,  pictures,  natural  scenery,  sport,  good  clothes,  educa- 
tion, business,  politics,  or  what  not.  Most  certainly  of  all, 
he  takes  to  some  social  circle,  which  may  easily  be  one  unknown 
and  undreamed  of  In  his  childhood. 

So  rapid  and  so  radical  are  the  shiftings  of  adolescence  from 
the  personal  groupings  of  childhood,  and  so  positive  is  the  de- 

» The  significance  of  adolescence  for  religious  conversion  wiU  be  considered 
in  the  next  chapter. 


160  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

sire  not  to  be  a  child  any  longer,  that  the  observer  can  easily 
get  an  impression  that  what  occurs  is  not  only  a  social  quicken- 
ing but  also  a  social  break  with  the  individual's  past.  This 
impression  is  deepened  by  reactions  made  by  youths  who  en- 
counter parental  opposition  to  the  laying  aside  of  childhood's 
dependence  and  subordination. 

Before  we  commit  ourselves  to  the  opinion  that  adolescence  is 
such  a  break,  however,  we  should  remind  ourselves  that  a  peace- 
ful river,  if  it  is  obstructed  by  a  dam,  may  break  the  barrier 
and  become  a  destructive  flood.  Many  a  parent,  blunderingly 
preferring  that  his  child  should  remain  a  child,  and  resenting 
the  individuality  and  the  new  social  attachments  that  youth 
brings,  produces  the  social  refractoriness  that  he  blames  upon 
the  hot  blood  of  youth.  That  is,  the  break  in  such  cases  is 
not  brought  about  by  growth  into  adolescence  any  more  than 
by  resistance  to  such  growth. 

Educators,  moreover,  should  have  no  illusions  as  to  the 
relation  of  the  laws  of  habit  to  the  adolescent  period.  It  is 
a  truism  when  one  speaks  it,  and  yet  it  needs  to  be  said,  that 
provision  must  be  made  for  forming,  not  social  habits  (for  some 
social  connections  will  be  made  anyway),  but  the  particular 
sort  of  social  habits  that  is  required  by  the  democracy  toward 
which  the  Christian  purpose  aspires.  Adolescence  can  produce 
snobbery  more  easily  than  democracy.  In  fact,  no  small  part 
of  social  education  at  this  period  consists  in  widening  out  the 
purposes  of  groups  already  formed  upon  the  basis  of  a  narrow 
and  exclusive  regard  of  a  few  for  a  few.  Here  again  the  in- 
dicated educational  method  is  admittance  of  the  young  to  social 
groups  and  to  social  practice  that  are  more  mature  than  youth 
itself  would  spontaneously  devise. 

The  theory  of  recapitulation,  when  it  asserts  that  childhood 
is  essentially  egoistic,  and  that  genuine  altruism  must  wait 
for  adolescence,  seems  to  assume  that  selfish  habits,  made 
strong  by  exercise  through  the  whole  of  childhood,  somehow 
become  null  and  void  when  one  passes  from  childhood  to  youth. 
Is  this  true?  We  have  already  seen  that  the  sexual  instinct 
is  not,  of  itself,  unambiguously  social  except  in  a  narrow  sense; 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  161 

it  can  easily  mingle  with  Itself  other  impulses  so  as  to  form  a 
complex  whole  that  is  tender  and  beautiful  as  well  as  strong; 
but  it  can  also  be  cruel,  hard,  blind,  savage,  weak.  The  par- 
ticular complex  of  social  attitudes  that  are  henceforth  to  prevail 
is  not  at  all  predictable  from  anything  in  this  one  instinct. 
Just  as  in  childhood,  so  here,  the  personality  is  formed  by  a 
multitude  of  particular  experiences  that  bring  multiform  in- 
stinctive satisfactions  and  dissatisfactions.  The  bonds  that 
are  now  formed  with  one's  fellows  are  bonds  of  habit  as  well  as 
of  instinct. 

Not  only  must  habit  forming  still  go  on;  the  whole  of  it 
will  be  affected  by  preadolescent  social  experience.  Nothing 
occurs  that  can  at  a  stroke  wipe  old  selfish  habits  off  the  slate. 
On  the  face  of  the  matter,  how  can  one  suppose  that  instinctive 
attraction  for  the  opposite  sex  will  reverse  an  already  firm  habit 
with  respect  to  one's  own  sex  ?  Even  a  youth's  attitudes  toward 
the  opposite  sex  are  like  the  householder's  treasure,  which  con- 
tains things  new  and  old.  The  kind  of  mother  a  boy  has 
associated  with  for  more  than  a  dozen  years;  the  way  his  father 
has  treated  her,  and  the  way  she  has  responded  to  this  treat- 
ment; the  sort  of  sex  distinctions  that  have  been  cm-rent  in  the 
boy's  social  environment;  the  amount  and  the  qualities  of  the 
comradeship  that  he  has  had  with  girls;  the  treatment  of  women 
to  which  he  has  been  witness  everywhere,  all  these  leave  in  his 
mind  a  sediment  so  firm  that  it  seems  to  him  to  be  bed  rock, 
nature  itself. 

These  social  assumptions  are  not  necessarily  affected  by  his 
new  emotions  toward  girls  and  women.  He  can  adore  a  female 
without  stopping  to  ask  whether  women  should  be  treated  as 
equals  or  as  inferiors ;  and  he  can  actually  treat  the  adored  one 
as  an  inferior  without  ceasing  to  adore.  He  can  even  magnify 
the  virtue  of  his  affection  on  the  ground  that  he,  a  superior 
creature,  bestows  himself  upon  an  inferior!  By  the  comple- 
mentary process,  too,  girls  can  come  to  prefer  such  male  atten- 
tions to  any  other.  The  whole  instinctive  adolescent  process 
can  run  its  course  between  the  fences  of  almost  any  social 
system.     To  change  the  figure,  the  social  attitudes  of  a  youth 


162  CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS 

are  not  like  a  garden  bed  of  plants  just  breaking  through  the 
soil,  and  all  springing  from  freshly  planted  seeds  of  one  and  the 
same  variety,  but  like  a  bed  in  which  annuals,  biennials,  and 
perennials  mix,  the  tender  shoots  standing  side  by  side  with 
plants  that  are  fibrous  and  stiff  from  years  of  growth. 

It  follows  that  educational  methods  that  segregate  children 
in  such  a  way  as  to  narrow  their  social  experience  tend  toward 
permanent  arrest  of  social  growth.  It  may  well  be  that  for 
particular  purposes  boys  should  practise  co-operation  with  boys, 
and  girls  with  girls,  but  a  general  policy  of  sex  segregation, 
placed  within  the  actual  historical  setting  of  the  present,  can- 
not fail  to  leave  permanent  marks  of  social  impoverishment 
upon  both  sexes,  an  impoverishment  that  makes  both  of  them 
unready  for  certain  essentials  of  democracy.  Again,  the  segre- 
gation of  younger  children  from  older  ones,  and  the  segregation 
of  children  of  any  age  from  adult  companionship  and  from 
adult  thought  and  enterprise,  leave  some  social  capacities  un-. 
developed,  and  harden  the  remaining  ones  into  a  dominant  life 
attitude. 

Of  course  gradation  of  pupils  and  of  material  is  essential 
for  certain  purposes,  but  the  nature  of  proper  gradation  is  easily 
misconceived.  Pupils  are  often  graded  down  to  that  which  is 
easy  for  them  instead  of  being  graded  up  toward  the  most 
advanced  of  their  interests;  or  the  average  performance  of  an 
age  group  is  taken  as  a  satisfactory  standard  for  each  member 
of  it,  whereas  there  are  wide  variations  within  such  groups; 
or  an  assumption  is  made  that  the  interests  and  capacities  of 
an  individual  go  up  like  an  elevator,  all  at  once,  whereas  their 
ascent  is  uneven,  like  that  of  a  band  of  children  frolicking  up  a 
stairway.  If  the  possibilities  of  co-operation  between  younger 
and  older  are  found  in  a  given  case  to  cover  only  a  narrow  area, 
we  must  not  conclude  that  co-operation  within  this  narrow  area 
is  educationally  unimportant.  This  particular  readiness  of  a 
child  may  be  an  open  road  toward  a  valuable  social  habit;  ex- 
perience at  this  point  may  awaken  further  interests;  the  joy 
of  achievement  here  may  raise  the  level  of  all  his  work. 

The  cordiality  of  our  recognition  of  social  values  in  new 


CHILDREN'S  LIMITATIONS  1G3 

types  of  bo3^s'  club  work  must  now  be  tempered  by  reserve  as 
to  a  single  point.  As  far  as  these  clubs  take  boys  out  of  edu- 
cationally wholesome  homes;  as  far  as  parents  are  encouraged 
to  transfer  their  educational  responsibility  to  the  boys'  work 
specialist;  as  far  as  this  specialist  conceals  the  man  in  himself  in 
order  to  be  a  boy  with  the  boys;  as  far  as  he  binds  the  boys  to 
himself  rather  than  to  the  social  order;  to  the  extent  that  he 
encourages  not  only  the  processes  of  tribal  society  but  also  its 
social  standards — to  this  extent  social  arrest  will  mix  with  social 
growth. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  SIN 

"Sin"  is  a  social  conception.    WTien  I  was  a  boy  I  was 

taught  that  sin  is  a  relation,  not  between  me  and  my  neighbor, 
but  between  me  and  God.  Subsequent  reflection  has  led  me  to 
regard  the  distinction  here  made  as  not  vaHd.  The  intimacy  of 
the  two  Great  Commandments  to  each  other  is  too  close.  The 
dwelHng  place  of  the  Highest  is  not  apart  from,  but  within, 
the  brotherhood,  which  is  the  family  of  God  and  the  kingdom  of 
God.  I  find  neither  psychological,  nor  ethical,  nor  meta- 
physical footing  for  the  idea  that  I  can  have  relations  with  God 
in  which  he  and  I  are  isolated  from  all  other  society.  My 
very  being  as  a  conscious  indi\ddual  is  bound  up  with  that  of 
my  fellows;  a  divine  judgment  upon  what  I  am  and  upon  what 
I  will  to  be  is  yer  se  a  judgment  upon  my  reciprocal  human  re- 
lationships. Nor  can  I  judge  God  otherwise.  The  only  mean- 
ing that  I  can  give  to  his  supreme  goodness,  the  only  ground  that 
I  can  assign  for  bowing  my  will  to  his,  is  that  he  enters  into  the 
human  social  process  more  fully,  more  constructively,  than  I  do. 
The  need  for  any  such  term  as  sin  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  men, 
in  addition  to  constructing  the  human  society  in  which  God 
and  men  are  both  sharers,  also  obstruct  it  and  in  some  measure 
destroy.  We  must  now  as  educators  face  the  fact  that  we  do, 
individually  and  collectively,  oppose,  resist,  and  undo  our  own 
work  of  social  upbuilding.  We  must  inquire  into  the  ground  in 
human  nature  for  the  slowness,  the  delays,  the  backsets,  and 
the  defeat  of  ourselves  by  ourselves  that  are  so  obviously  a 
part  of  the  process  of  establishing  the  democracy  of  God. 

The  lodgment  of  sin  in  the  individual  and  in  society. 
In  the  light  of  our  previous  analysis  it  is  possible  to  go  at  once 
to  an  inventory  of  the  negative  factors  with  which  we  have  to 
reckon. 

164 


SIN  165 

(1)  We  have  anti-social  instincts.  They  have  been  enumerated 
already.  What  needs  to  be  noted  in  addition  is  that  they  are 
not  so  many  isolated  impulses,  but  factors  that  by  various  men- 
tal processes  are  built  into  the  personality  and  into  the  struc- 
ture of  society. 

(2)  The  exercise  of  anti-social  as  well  as  of  social  instincts  is 
pleasurable.  The  satisfaction  of  grabbing;  of  greedy  possession ; 
of  venting  envy,  jealousy,  and  wrath;  of  hunting,  fighting,  and 
mastering,  as  well  as  of  sexual  license — this  satisfaction  is  what 
makes  all  of  them  hard  to  resist.  Only  psychological  blindness 
and  educational  folly  could  teach  that  the  pleasures  of  sin  are 
a  delusion.  Some  sinful  pleasures  are  evanescent,  it  is  true, 
but  not  all.  Some  bring  pain  in  their  wake,  but  not  all,  and 
there  are  great  possibilities  of  foresighted  calculation  and  pre- 
vention of  disagreeable  consequences.  Social  impulses  have  a 
way  of  disturbing  the  dreams  of  selfishness,  it  is  true,  but  then, 
social  impulses  can  be  quieted ! 

(3)  The  laws  of  habit  formation  are  indifferent  to  social  values; 
therefore  a  child  who  experiences  satisfaction  in  his  anti-social 
acts  has  in  himself  no  protection  from  anti-social  habits.  A  par- 
ticular child  may  be  so  situated  that  the  constructive  social 
instincts,  being  called  out  oftener  and  yielding  greater  pleasure 
than  the  anti-social  ones,  counteract  them.  Such  situations 
the  educator  deliberately  arranges,  and  he  also  attaches  dis- 
satisfactions to  the  anti-social  reactions.  But  there  is  nothing 
in  the  child's  own  habit-forming  mechanism  that  does  this  for 
him.  In  the  absence  of  help  from  others,  or  of  some  fortunate 
chance  mixture  of  conditions,  he  forms  anti-social  habits  as 
spontaneously  as  social  ones.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  education 
has  not  yet  perfected  its  control  of  the  habits  of  even  one 
child.  Every  one  makes  anti-social  instinctive  reactions,  ex- 
periences pleasure  from  them,  as  a  result  repeats  them  with 
added  vigor,  and  thus  becomes  a  victim  of  habits  which  educa- 
tion has  to  devise  methods  for  breaking. 

(4)  One's  habits  of  conduct  reflect  themselves  in  one's  social 
thinking,  sometimes  as  a  formulated  premise  the  truth  of  which  is 
assumed,  sometimes  as  a  control  of  attention  whereby  social  facts 

REIGMEn  READING  ROOM 
\    PRINCEJOH,  N.  J. 


166  SIN 

of  some  sorts  are  noticed  and  evaluated,  while  social  facts  of  other 
sorts  are  not.  Thus,  in  a  perfectly  natural  way,  anti-social  prin- 
ciples and  rules  of  conduct  mix  with  social  ones.  A  thing  tends 
to  be  defined  in  our  thinking  by  that  which  we  habitually  notice 
in  it.  A  pine-tree  is  not  the  same  sort  of  thing  to  a  lumberjack 
as  to  a  John  Muir.  Just  so,  "  human  nature"  is,  in  the  thinking 
of  each  of  us,  that  which  we  habitually  notice  in  our  fellows. 
Now,  what  we  habitually  notice  is  that  which  we  have  to  take 
account  of  in  carrying  out  our  own  purposes  and  lines  of  con- 
duct. Many  of  us  not  only  initiate  our  plans  from  our  own  self- 
ishness, but  in  the  execution  of  them  awaken  self-regarding 
impulses  in  others.  Thereupon  we  judge  that  human  nature 
is  rootedly  selfish !  You  will  find  no  one  so  doggedly  certain  of 
this  as  the  man  who  makes  profits  by  stimulating  other  men's 
cupidity.  On  the  other  hand,  you  will  find  no  one  so  certain 
of  the  inherent  nobility  of  human  nature  as  those  who  make 
opportunity  for  such  nobility  to  show  itself. 

Thus  it  is  that  anti-social  instincts,  confirmed  by  habit,  be- 
come a  basis  of  anti-social  thinking.  Probably  most  persons 
suppose  that  the  order  of  psychological  dependence  is  the  re- 
verse of  this,  at  least  in  part.  Justifying  their  habits  by  their 
thinking,  they  imagine  that  their  habits  are  a  product  of  rea- 
son. Socrates,  indeed,  held  that  the  reason  that  we  do  wrong 
is  that  we  do  not  clearly  see  what  is  right.  Aristotle,  on  the 
other  hand,  took  the  position  that  practice  is  itself  one  of  the 
sources  of  insight.  Without  going  into  some  fine  questions 
thus  raised,  we  may  say  that  psychology  justifies,  on  the  whole, 
the  tendency  of  Aristotle's  thought  at  this  point.  Thoughts 
about  what  is  worthy  of  approval  do  not  begin  until  we  have 
already  approved  and  condemned  many  things.  It  is  by  reflec- 
tion upon  these  judgments,  already  made,  and  by  reaffirming 
some  of  them,  that  we  arrive  at  principles  for  future  conduct. 

Sin  gets  control  of  our  thinking,  then,  as  follows:  First  we 
experience  enjoyment  in  some  anti-social  reaction;  the  enjoy- 
ment stimulates  to  repetition  of  the  act;  a  habit  is  thus  started; 
we  cherish  the  memory  of  the  experience;  then  relate  it  in 
thought  to  other  things  so  as  to  make  a  system,  and  to  provide 


SIN  167 

for  unlimited  repetition;  this  thought  system  in  turn  becomes 
a  habit,  and  now,  behold,  the  unsocial  principle  that  has  been 
derived  from  instinct  is  henceforth  taken  as  an  axiom  of  social 
life. 

(5)  Anti-social  instincts,  habits,  and  ways  of  thinking  are 
intrenched  in  social  institutions,  in  customs,  and  in  'public  opin- 
ion. Society  expects  selfishness  from  individuals,  and  to  some 
extent  actually  rewards  it.  If  we  look  at  society  in  historical 
perspective,  we  perceive  that  it  is,  on  the  whole,  an  evolu- 
tionary process  in  which  we  are  working  out  the  beast,  and 
training  ourselves  to  have  regard  for  what  is  humane.  The  or- 
ganized faults  that  are  in  society  did  not,  of  course,  originate 
in  any  fall  from  a  perfectly  organized  common  life;  they  are 
simply  parts  of  our  instinctive  endowment  that,  confirmed  by 
habit  and  by  being  made  premises  for  thought,  restimulate 
themselves  from  generation  to  generation  by  informal  education. 

The  social  conditions  into  which  a  child  is  born  actually  train 
him,  though  unintentionally  for  the  most  part,  to  be  selfish 
within  these  conventional  limits.  It  is  true  that  society  praises 
unstinted  generosity;  it  admires,  though  with  more  reserve, 
the  fine  and  sturdy  justice  that  asks  for  only  a  democrat's  share, 
and  endeavors  to  secure  as  much  for  others.  But  it  takes  for 
granted  that  these  will  be  exceptional.  A  general  low  average 
of  self-seeking  is  socially  expected.  Success,  in  common  par- 
lance, connotes  getting  something  for  oneself,  and  the  mass 
pays  homage  to  success.  At  the  crucially  important  point  of 
sex  morality,  young  men  who  are  willing  to  make  the  fight 
for  character  cannot  yet  count  upon  effective  social  support 
from  either  men  or  women. 

When  a  morally  thoughtful  parent  or  teacher  witnesses  the 
generous  and  trustful  impulses  of  childhood,  or  the  glowing 
idealism  of  youth,  he  sighs  to  think  of  the  disillusionment  that 
is  to  come  when,  "getting  into  the  world,"  one  meets  its  hard- 
ness, and  is  in  turn  hardened.  The  withering  of  ideals  as  the 
dews  of  life's  morning  are  dried  up  by  the  heat  of  competition, 
of  greed,  of  political  self-seeking,  and  of  licentiousness,  is  the 
continuous  tragedy  of  education.     Sin,  that  is  to  say,  has  social 


168  SIN 

organs  by  which  It  is  transmitted  through  the  generations, 
positively  preventing  the  young  from  even  attempting  to  follow 
out  in  maturity  their  best  social  impulses.  Generation  after 
generation  social  capacities  that  are  certainly  here  are  wasted 
by  society  itself. 

Sin,  then,  is  rooted  in  instinct,  confirmed  by  habit,  and  prop- 
agated by  informal  social  education.  Let  us  have  no  illu- 
sions with  respect  to  the  cost  of  democracy.  Education  for 
democracy  has  to  face,  not  only  unsocial  traits  in  the  child's 
original  nature,  but  also  a  social  system  that  brings  them  out, 
sustains  them,  justifies  them  in  popular  thinking,  and  rewards 
them  when  they  "succeed." 

The  possibility  of  success  in  educating  for  democracy  lies  in 
the  fact,  first  of  all,  that  in  our  selfishness  we  are  not  at  one 
with  ourselves,  but  are  stirred  to  unselfishness  also  by  instinct, 
and  by  the  habits  and  institutions  that  have  arisen  therefrom, 
and  second,  that  selfishness  and  brotherliness  do  not  have 
equal  capacity  for  organizing  themselves.  Love  of  one  another 
produces  a  degree  of  co-operation,  which  is  the  massing  of  hu- 
man energy,  that  is  impossible  to  greed,  licentiousness,  and  the 
lust  of  power.  Selfishness  tends  to  disorganization  and  in- 
effectiveness in  the  long  run.  Temporary  equilibrium  may  be 
attained  in  some  cases  by  balancing  the  selfish  interest  of  one 
person  against  that  of  another,  but  permanent  stability  is  not 
attained  in  this  way.  Have  we  not  learned  the  lesson  that 
the  massing  of  individual  self-interest  into  a  group  selfishness  is 
the  way  of  class  struggles  within  a  nation,  and  of  wars  without  ? 
Massed  selfishness  tends  thus  to  be  anarchic,  and  to  pull  itself 
down  in  the  ruin  of  its  competitors.  But  love  builds  and  de- 
stroys not.  Unwise  love  may  destroy,  but  it  is  the  unwisdom, 
not  the  love,  that  is  responsible.  What  the  friends  of  democ- 
racy have  to  do  is  to  put  administrative  experience  and  scientific 
analysis  into  the  service  of  the  brotherly  purpose,  and  to  train 
children  in  the  resulting  concepts  and  methods  as  well  as  in  the 
love  motive. 

The  psychological  approach  to  children's  faults.  What 
has  just  been  said  as  to  the  extent  and  the  firmness  of  the  lodge- 


SIN  169 

ment  of  sin  awakens  echoes  of  the  old  controversy  over  total 
depravity.  Echoes  only;  for  our  problem  is  different,  and  our 
approach  to  facts  is  different.  BeHef  in  total  depravity  was  a 
dogmatic  belief,  that  is,  one  accepted  upon  authority  that  was 
supposed  to  be  that  of  divine  revelation.  The  procedure  was 
a  priori,  the  conclusion  being  first  accepted,  and  facts  then  being 
used  merely  to  illustrate  and  confirm  it.  Illustration  and  con- 
firmation, too,  consisted,  not  in  analyzing  children's  conduct, 
or  in  tracing  it  to  its  causes,  but  in  contrasting  it  with  a  fixed 
standard  of  adult  or  even  divine  perfection,  and  then  taking  all 
deviation  from  the  standard  en  bloc  as  defect  of  child  nature. 
Even  though  less  deviation  had  been  found,  or  none  at  all, 
the  doctrine  would  have  stood  nevertheless. 

The  whole  landscape  is  changed  as  soon  as  we  go  at  the 
facts  in  the  spirit  of  science.  We  recognize  in  children  multi- 
tudes of  reactions  that  are  social  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
some  of  our  maturest  Christian  conduct  is  social.  We  perceive 
other  reactions  that  are  anti-social  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
some  of  our  mature  badness  is  anti-social.  But  we  perceive 
also  that  neither  sort  of  reaction  has  as  yet  the  woody  fibre  of 
adult  character.  Moreover,  we  see  that  children's  ways  are  not 
simple,  as  the  theory  of  depravity  makes  them  out  to  be.  We 
do  not  have  just  "good  children''  and  "bad  children"  to  deal 
with,  but  personalities  already  complex  because  of  the  influence 
of  preceding  experiences  as  well  as  because  of  the  variety  of  the 
instincts  that  are  always  at  work.  If  we  are  to  understand  these 
personalities,  we  must  analyze  their  conduct  into  its  elements; 
we  must  see  the  relations  of  these  elements  to  one  another  and 
to  the  particular  stimulus  that  awakens  each  of  them  on  each 
occasion;  and  in  all  this  we  must  persistently  trace  each  specific 
item  to  an  equally  specific  cause.  The  following  questions, 
which  may  appropriately  be  raised  when  faulty  conduct,  or  con- 
duct that  seems  to  be  faulty,  occur,  will  illustrate  this  psycho- 
logical approach. 

How  much  in  the  conduct  that  is  regarded  as  faulty  is  a  result 
of  physiological  conditions  such  as  imperfect  nutrition,  digestive 
disturbances,   adenoids  and   mouth-breathing  or  other  diseased 


170  SIN 

conditions  that  lower  the  vitality,  defective  sense-organs,  and 
nervous  instability  produced  by  fatigue,  lack  of  sleep,  over- 
stimulation, or  other  causes  ? 

How  much  of  the  faulty  conduct  is  an  imitative  reproduction 
of  the  conduct  of  others,  whether  children  or  adults  ?  How  much 
of  it  constitutes  an  attempt  to  adjust  oneself,  protectively  for 
example,  to  persons  who  are  stronger  ? 

How  much  of  it  is  a  matter  of  habit,  and  how  did  this  habit 
arise?  Note  the  distribution  of  the  child's  pleasures  heretofore. 
Has  he  repeatedly  experienced  pleasure  in  acts  of  this  kind,  and 
if  so  could  his  elders  have  controlled  conditions  so  as  to  deprive 
such  acts  of  their  pleasurable  quality?  What  satisfactions  have 
been  provided  for  conduct  of  opposite  social  quality?  In  short, 
have  his  elders  arranged  conditions  heretofore  so  that  social  acts 
on  his  part  have  regularly  brought  satisfaction,  and  anti-social  acts 
discomfort  ? 

What  is  the  situation  that  called  out  this  particular  unsocial 
act  ?  Our  reactions  do  not  occur  in  a  vacuum,  but  in  response  to 
specific  incitement.  What  are  the  specific  elements  in  the  situa- 
tion that  the  child  was  reacting  to,  and  in  particular  what  was 
each  of  these  elements  to  him  at  the  time?  Do  not  define  the 
situation  merely  as  it  looks  to  an  adult;  do  not  define  it  in  merely 
general  terms,  but  make  sure  how  the  particular  features  of  it 
looked  to  this  child  at  this  time.^ 

What  are  the  instinctive  roots  of  the  reaction?  Avoid  for  the 
time  being  all  such  blanket  or  cover-up  terms  as  badness,  naughty 
child,  selfishness,  wilfulness,  obstinacy,  disobedience,  heedless- 
ness, untruthfulness,  cruelty,  and  guilt  and  innocence.  Find  what 
specific  impulses  were  in  play  at  the  moment  and  immediately 
before  it,  and  see  how  each  responds  to  some  particular  incitement 
in  the  situation. 

» A  child  of  six  was  told  by  his  mother  to  perform  a  certain  small  service 
that  would  take  him  temporarily  from,  the  room.  He  started  to  comply, 
but  paused  inside  the  room,  and  he  remained  unmoved  even  by  the  second 
command.  A  third  command  brought  this  rejoinder:  "But,  mother,  I 
shall  miss  the  story !"  For  at  the  moment  he  was  a  member  of  a  conversa- 
tional group  in  which  a  story  was  just  then  in  progress.  The  mother,  promptly 
perceiving  that  she,  rather  than  the  boy,  had  strained  the  mother-child  re- 
lation, gave  permission  to  remain  to  the  end  of  the  story,  whereupon  the 
child  cheerfully  performed  his  duty.  What  would  have  been  the  educa- 
tional effect  if  the  mother  had  insisted  upon  instant  compliance  regardless 
of  the  elements  in  the  situation  to  which  the  child  was  at  the  moment  respond- 
ing? How  can  we  expect  to  make  children  social  minded  by  insisting  that 
we  are  right  when  in  fact  we  are  blundering? 


SIN  171 

It  will  then  at  last  be  time  to  ask  which  of  these  impulses, 
if  any  at  all,  needs  to  be  suppressed.  We  shall  often  find  that  the 
chief  difficulty  is  in  an  immature  application  of  an  instinct  that 
has  permanent  value. 

Analysis  like  this  usually  discovers  that  the  chief  factor  in 
the  faulty  conduct  is  some  physiological  condition  or  else  some 
previous  and  continued  failure  of  the  child's  elders  to  provide 
conditions  favorable  for  the  growth  of  social  habits  and  of 
social  intelligence.  Even  the  nervous  causes  of  children's 
unsocial  conduct  are  most  often  a  product  of  adult  neglect. 
The  "depravity"  that  the  child  exhibits,  therefore,  is  com- 
monly not  that  of  his  own  heart,  but  that  of  remediable  faults 
of  adult  individuals  and  of  adult  society. 

Educational  guidance  of  self-approval  and  self-condem- 
nation. Though  the  causes  of  a  child's  misconduct  be  thus 
traced  to  us  his  elders,  the  misconduct  is  nevertheless  his  ow^n, 
and  he  needs  emancipation  from  it.  His  act  is  bound  to  leave 
some  deposit  in  the  self  that  he  is  now  forming.  The  educa- 
tor's task  is  to  see  that  childish  faults,  w^hatever  their  cause, 
are  so  handled  as  to  leave  a  socially  constructive  deposit.  The 
fact  that  a  child  is  not  "really  bad"  does  not  imply  that  he 
should  be  let  alone.  In  some  instances,  doubtless,  the  best 
thing  that  can  happen  is  that  his  misconduct  should  be  mini- 
mized and  forgotten,  especially  misconduct  that  involves  no 
immediate  danger  to  others,  and  misconduct  that  is  not  in 
serious  danger  of  becoming  habitual.  But  in  the  by-and-large 
some  realization  on  the  part  of  the  child  himself  that  something 
is  wrong,  and  that  it  must  be  corrected,  is  most  important  both 
for  constructive  social  habits  and  for  constructive  social  think- 
ing. If  a  child  who  is  already  able  to  communicate  by  language 
is  merely  wheedled  or  coddled  into  being  amiable,  the  best 
that  can  result  is  a  blind  habit,  probably  a  habit  of  waiting  for 
the  wdieedling  or  the  coddling,  whereas  he  needs  to  grow  in  self- 
reliance,  in  self-guidance,  and  therefore  in  discriminative  judg- 
ment upon  his  own  conduct.     This  implies  that: 

(1)  Things  to  he  done  and  things  to  he  avoided  must  he  defined 
in  the  child's  own  mind  with  sufficient  clearness  to  enable  him  to 


172  SIN 

know  whether  or  not  he  has  acted  correctly.  This  means  that 
there  must  be  rules,  but  it  does  not  imply  that  rules  are  to  be 
imposed  by  authority  that  to  the  child  must  seem  arbitrary. 
In  some  matters,  especially  those  that  concern  health  and  physi- 
cal safety,  rules  must  be  enforced  whether  the  child  understands 
the  necessity  of  them  or  not.  But  every  effort  should  be  made 
to  have  every  requirement,  as  far  as  possible,  a  mutual  under- 
standing between  the  child  and  his  elders.  Moreover,  rules 
must  not  be  so  difficult  as  to  discourage  efforts  to  obey.  Rather, 
rules  should  be  made  so  easy  that  the  child  will  have  the  joy  of 
meeting  the  standard  and  of  triumphing  over  his  own  weakness. 
To  children,  as  to  adults,  the  consciousness  that  one  knows 
just  what  is  expected,  and  just  how  to  meet  the  expectation, 
gives  a  sense  of  power.^ 

(2)  The  child  must  he  made  aware  that  other  'persons,  if  possible 
both  children  and  adults,  approve  acts  of  his  that  comply  ivith  the 
standard,  and  disapprove  acts  of  his  that  violate  it.  Every  child 
is  entitled  to  such  social  support  and  correction  for  his  judg- 
ments upon  himself.  Social  approval  and  disapproval  hold 
his  attention  to  the  point,  enable  him  to  look  farther  ahead, 
and  to  some  extent  help  to  keep  the  mind  objective  and  to 
counteract  self-sophistication  and  self-importance.  The  power 
that  others  thus  have  over  us  by  strictly  psychological  means 
is  elemental.  Our  response  to  the  approvals  and  disapprovals 
of  others  is  instinctive  and  emotional.  Here  is  natural  educa- 
tion, the  power  of  which  is  little  less  than  marvellous.  Chil- 
dren as  young  as  four  years  who  persist  in  passionate  attacks 
upon  playmates  in  spite  of  repeated  physical  chastisement  by 
parents  have  been  known  to  struggle  for  self-control  and  to 
achieve  it  as  soon  as  their  playmates  unitedly  expressed  their 
attitude  by  withdrawing  from  the  passionate  children's  so- 
ciety. 

Here  lie  the  instinctive  roots  of  the  sense  of  guilt,  and  in 
general   of   what   is   popularly   called   conscience.     Whatever 

1  "How  do  you  do,  M.?"  said  some  neighbors  to  a  very  small  boy  who 
was  playing  in  the  front  yard.  He  answered:  "Pretty  well,  thank  you,"  and 
instantly  ran  into  the  house  to  ask  his  mother  whether  he  had  made  the  cor- 
rect reply. 


SIN  173 

sensitiveness  we  attain  toward  abstract  right,  or  duty,  or  ideals, 
or  God,  takes  its  rise  in  sensitiveness  toward  the  approvals  and 
disapprovals  of  human  beings.  The  range  of  this  influence 
has  no  natural  limits.  The  most  exalted  sense  of  obligation 
is  psychologically  continuous  with  the  inner  impulsion  that 
makes  us  conform  to  social  expectation  in  such  trivial  matters 
as  the  style  of  our  shoes;  and  the  self-approval  of  a  good  con- 
science is  similarly  related  to  the  puffing  up  of  ourselves  when  we 
learn  that  one  of  our  thousand  ancestors  ten  generations  back 
was  distinguished  for  something  or  other !  Obviously  a  power 
like  this  needs  to  be  used  by  the  educator  with  discrimination. 
Both  the  objects  that  are  to  receive  social  approval  and  dis- 
approval, and  the  emotional  intensity  of  the  experience  of 
social  opinion  must  be  regulated.     Hence: 

(3)  These  approvals  and  disapprovals  must  he  so  expressed 
that  the  attention  of  the  child  is  kept  upon  the  grounds  thereof , 
that  is,  the  thing  that  is  good  or  bad,  arid  why  it  is  so.  What  he 
needs  is  to  form  a  like  opinion,  or  to  see  some  fact  in  a  new  light, 
yes,  even  to  desire  something  that  he  did  not  desire  before. 
If,  when  he  is  condemned,  he  fixes  his  mind  upon  the  disapprov- 
ing persons,  he  may  resent  their  attitude  because  it  hurts  him. 
He  then  condemns  their  condemnation  instead  of  condemning 
the  act  that  they  disapprove.  He  may  even  stiffen  himself 
in  his  misconduct  by  associating  his  discomfort  with  the  dis- 
approval instead  of  with  his  own  fault.  Moreover,  the  emo- 
tional effect  of  condemnation,  especially  if  it  is  not  tempered 
to  the  child's  individual  sensitiveness,  may  easily  be  depres- 
sion and  discouragement,  paralysis  of  action,  the  withering  of 
initiative.  Here,  again,  the  persons  who  condemn  get  them- 
selves between  the  child  and  his  proper  goal. 

When  he  meets  approval,  as  well  as  when  he  meets  dis- 
approval, something  depends  upon  the  direction  of  his  atten- 
tion. If  he  does  not  think  of  the  grounds  of  the  approval,  but 
rather  forms  a  mental  association  between  his  own  enjoyment 
and  the  approvers,  he  will  indeed  be  drawn  to  them  in  a  sort  of 
fellowship,  but  the  attachment  will  be  that  of  the  clique,  not 
that  of  a  generous  sociality.     Cliquism  consists  essentially  in 


174  SIN 

admiration  for  persons  without  discriminating  what  is  admi- 
rable or  otherwise  in  them.  If  discrimination  were  practised, 
the  traits  that  are  really  likable  in  the  members  of  the  clique 
would  be  found  outside  as  well  as  inside  it,  and  unlikable  traits 
would  be  found  inside. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  is  that  the  educational  effect  that 
is  to  be  sought  from  social  approvals  and  disapprovals,  whether 
from  other  children  or  from  adults,  should  not  be  the  strength- 
ening of  purposeless  social  likes  and  dislikes,  but  increase  in  the 
child's  intelligent  co-operation  with  other  children  and  with 
adults  for  specific  objective  ends. 

(4)  Condemnation  must  not  he  administered  so  often  or  made  so 
emphatic,  and  approval  must  not  he  so  rare,  that  the  child  hecomes 
convinced  that  he  is  really  and  rootedly  had,  and  accepts  himself 
as  such,  or  concludes  that  misconduct  is  not  a  serious  thing  after  all. 
The  approvals  and  disapprovals  should  be  of  such  a  kind,  and 
so  distributed,  as  to  awaken  in  him  a  discriminating  judgment 
upon  the  tendencies  of  his  conduct,  a  realization  that  there  is 
something  for  him  to  struggle  for,  and  a  hopeful  attitude  in 
the  struggle.  Joy  is  the  handmaid  of  vigor;  depression  con- 
spires with  weakness.  If  frequent  repetition  of  condemnation 
does  not  bring  depression,  it  brings  nevertheless  another  evil. 
As  the  skin  defends  itself  from  undue  pressure  by  becoming 
thick  and  callous,  so  constant  fault-finding  renders  the  mind 
insensitive  to  its  faults.  The  child  must  be  trained  to  notice 
differences;  therefore  his  elders  must  do  so.  They  must  ex- 
press their  appreciation  of  even  feeble  efforts  toward  improve- 
ment, and  they  must  so  habitually  show  their  confidence  in 
him  that  his  habitual  notion  of  himself  will  be  that  of  improve- 
ment. This  policy  fits  the  spontaneous  interests  of  children. 
They  know  that  they  are  children;  they  aspire  to  grow;  they 
know  that  they  are  faulty;  they  like  change;  they  are  proud  to 
become  stronger  both  mentally  and  physically,  and  they  are 
quite  capable  of  the  joy  of  self-conquest.  What  a  pity  that  our 
own  insensitiveness  to  the  child's  capacities  for  changing  him- 
self should  create  conditions  that  dull  these  capacities  instead 
of  using  them. 


SIN  175 

(5)  In  order  to  educate  for  democracy,  there  must  he  free  reciproc- 
ity of  approvals  and  disapprovals  between  children  and  their  elders. 
We  cannot  make  democrats  of  children  by  treating  their  judg- 
ments as  of  no  account.  Merely  beating  down  another  will,  or 
flattening  it  down  by  constant  pressure,  whether  the  will  of  a 
nation,  or  of  a  man,  or  of  a  child,  is  the  mark  of  an  autocracy 
that  is  bent  upon  perpetuating  itself.  A  child  does  not  increase 
in  virtue  by  absolute  submission  to  anybody  or  anything.  Not 
training  in  such  submission,  but  practice  in  intelligent,  volun- 
tary co-operation,  is  the  thing  that  will  make  democrats  of 
children. 

This  principle  is  violated  in  self-governing  groups  of  children 
whenever  the  public  opinion  of  the  group  suppresses  individual 
judgment,  or  leaves  no  scope  for  making  it  effective.  The  prin- 
ciple is  violated  by  adults  whenever,  in  their  relations  with  a 
child,  they  assume  to  be  infallibly  right.  The  assumption  is 
grotesquely  untrue  anyw'ay;  it  is  always  untrue;  the  wisest 
parent  or  teacher  is  wise  only  in  spots,  and  no  one  is  competent 
to  locate  wuth  precision  the  boundaries  between  his  own  com- 
petence and  his  own  incompetence. 

Even  when  the  judgment  of  an  adult  is  precisely  right,  it 
should  not  be  merely  imposed  upon  a  child.  The  way  to  make 
the  child  a  democrat  is  to  make  him  a  convinced  and  therefore 
free  participant  in  true  judgments.  Children  must  be  encour- 
aged, then,  to  weigh  what  the  educator  says  and  does.  Amend- 
ments proposed  by  children  are  always  in  order;  that  is,  the 
educator  must  be  sincerely  willing  (not  merely  make  a  pretense 
of  being  willing)  to  reconsider  and  modify  his  own  plans.  The 
formation  of  a  genuinely  common  will  by  deliberation — this  is 
the  problem  of  democracy  not  only  in  election  campaigns  and 
in  the  halls  of  legislation,  but  also  in  every  schoolhouse,  in 
every  home,  and  in  every  church  school. 

This  will  involve  children's  approval  and  condemnation 
not  only  of  what  we  invite  then*  judgment  upon,  but  also  of 
what  they  take  it  into  their  heads  to  have  a  judgment  upon. 
One  of  the  things  in  which  they  will  take  the  keenest  interest 
is  our  own  personal  conduct.     Here,  as  well  as  in  child  life,  they 


176  SIN 

will  find  objective  material  in  which  they  can  discover  and  de- 
fine moral  differences.  Here  they  will  find  fellowship  in  their 
faults  as  well  as  in  their  virtues — that  is,  if  we  adults  have  the 
truly  democratic  humility,  the  high  educational  wisdom,  to 
let  children  help  us  in  our  moral  struggle  even  as  we  help  them. 
This  is  democracy  in  moral  education,  and  it  is  moral  education 
toward  democracy. 

Socialization  by  means  of  punishment.  What  has  been 
said  of  social  disapproval,  which  is  a  kind  of  punishment,  con- 
tains almost  everything  that  is  essential  in  a  general  theory 
of  punishment  except  certain  warnings  as  to  what  it  is  not.  In 
the  strict  and  proper  sense  of  the  word,  to  punish  is  to  express 
disapproval  by  means  more  emphatic  and  generally  more  pain- 
ful (though  not  always  so)  than  words.  The  disapproval,  the 
personal  relationship,  is  of  the  essence  of  it.  Punishment,  then, 
is  the  use  of  pain  as  a  means  of  improving  the  child's  social 
attitudes.  The  test  of  it  in  any  instance  is  the  contribution 
that  it  makes  to  the  formation  of  a  genuinely  common  will  of 
the  deliberative  type.  If  it  puts  persons  farther  apart  instead 
of  bringing  them  closer  to  one  another,  it  not  only  fails  to  be 
socially  educative,  it  becomes  anti-social  education. 

Much  that  is  called  disciplinary  punishment  is  condemned  at 
once  by  this  test.     Here  belong: 

Punishing  in  anger  or  as  a  means  of  relieving  one's  own  irrita- 
tion. 

Punishing  to  even  up  things,  under  the  barbarous  theory  of 
retaliation — if  you  hurt  us,  we  will  hurt  you.  A  refined  form  of 
this  theory  holds  that  abstract  justice  requires  that  -WTong  be  ex- 
piated by  pain,  and  that  right  be  rewarded  by  happiness.  Here 
the  presupposition  is  that  each  individual  will  act  upon  purely  in- 
dividualistic motives.  Such  punishment  tends  to  intensify  such 
motives.  It  separates  the  punished  from  the  punisher  instead 
of  uniting  them. 

Punishment  that  compels  to  the  performance  or  the  avoidance 
of  a  particular  act  without  regard  to  the  relations  between  per- 
sons that  are  involved  in  the  whole  matter.  When  the  punisher 
steps  into  the  situation  he  makes  the  personal  factor  prominent. 


SIN  177 

whether  he  intends  to  do  so  or  not.  He  may  imagine  that  he  is 
merely  adjusting  the  child  to  the  proper  use  of  material  things, 
or  to  playmates,  whereas  he  is  also  changing  the  relation  of  the 
child  to  himself  and  to  other  adults.  Unless  this  change  in  per- 
sonal relations  is  a  wholesome  one,  the  punislmient  is  to  be  con- 
demned. 

In  view  of  these  strictures  one  may  well  ask  whether,  then, 
any  punishment  can  be  socially  constructive.  Must  not  the 
deliberate  infliction  of  pain  inevitably  separate  persons  even 
though  it  secures  the  performance  or  the  avoidance  of  a  par- 
ticular act?  The  disciplinarian,  whether  parent  or  teacher, 
should  not  flinch  at  this  point.  The  cement  that  binds  individ- 
uals into  society  is  ultimately  the  satisfactions  that  they  have 
in  one  another's  presence.  Something  to  be  enjoyed  in  common 
is  the  genuinely  constructive  factor,  and  the  only  one,  in  any 
part  of  social  education.  All  that  the  infliction  of  pain  can 
possibly  do  is  to  clear  the  way  for  increased  social  enjoyment. 
Here,  then,  is  the  proper  test  and  control  of  all  punishments. 
Under  some  conditions  pain  deliberately  inflicted  can,  as  experi- 
ence shows,  heal  a  child's  mind  of  one  or  another  social  defect 
just  as  truly  as  the  painful  process  of  filling  a  tooth  may  stop 
toothache.     Let  us  note  some  of  these  conditions : 

When  a  child  is  carried  away  by  some  excitement  of  the  moment 
so  that  he  is  unable  to  use  his  judgment,  as  when  hilarious  play 
becomes  dangerous  or  cruel,  a  moderate  pain  inflicted  in  good 
nature  may  break  the  spell,  "clear  the  air,"  and  restore  him  to 
himself,  a  self  that  he  actually  approves  and  prefers. 

Young  children  often  produce  pain  in  others  wdthout  quite 
realizing  the  fact.  Inflicting  some  similar,  but  harmless,  pain, 
with  appropriate  explanation,  may  be  the  most  effective  cure.* 

What  is  past  and  gone  cannot  be  corrected;  it  can  only  be  used 
to  secure  some  future  good.  The  reason  for  punishment  is  not 
past  misconduct  or  present  perversity  of  will,  but  the  happier 

»A  small  boy  had  bitten  his  still  smaller  sister.  "Come  here,"  said  the 
mother,  "I  want  to  show  you  just  how  you  have  made  sister  feel."  There- 
upon the  mother's  teeth,  applied  firmly  and  painfully  to  the  lobe  of  an  ear 
illuminated  the  small  boy's  social  thinking  and  strengthened  his  social  motive 
toward  his  sister  without  separating  him  from  his  mother's  love. 


178  SIN 

future  that  punishment  may  bring  nearer.  The  amount  of  pain, 
and  the  method  of  administering  it,  must  be  determined  with  a 
view  to  turning  the  child's  attention  toward  this  better  future. 
Pain  that  draws  attention  to  itself  only  can  hardly  promote  self- 
control  or  social  self-guidance.  The  consequence  of  this  remark 
with  respect  to  the  severity  of  the  infliction  is  obvious  enough. 
Not  to  stop  reflection,  but  to  help  it,  is  the  proper  purpose;  not 
to  compel  or  crush,  but  to  assist  toward  the  realized  freedom  of 
self-control.  In  short,  punishment  is  good  when  it  actually  guides 
the  child's  attention  toward  a  possible  good,  the  desirability  of 
which  he  himself  sees.  If  at  the  moment  of  the  smart  he  cannot 
see,  the  smart  must  be  preceded  and  followed  by  deliberative 
processes  that  assist  him  to  do  so.  Many  a  child  has  found,  and 
promptly,  the  sweetness  of  clarified  insight  and  improved  self- 
control  produced  by  an  attention-arresting  pain  accompanied 
by  calm  and  friendly  discussion  of  its  purpose. 

But  increased  pleasures  of  a  social  sort,  that  is,  shared  pleasures, 
must  be  provided  by  the  very  hand  that  inflicts  the  pain.  It  is 
a  terrible  thing  for  a  child  to  think  habitually  of  any  human  being 
as  a  pain-bringer.  Not  fear,  but  love  is  what  does  all  the  con- 
structive work.  The  punisher  and  the  punished  must  have  so 
many  pleasures  that  they  share  with  each  other  that  the  child 
himself  will  realize  that  the  pain  is  only  an  incident  of  an  unbroken 
fellowship. 

As  soon  as  we  reach  this  point  we  see  that  we  must  go  one  step 
further  if  punishment  is  to  be  socially  constructive  in  the  highest 
measure.  As  the  ordinary  relation  of  the  punisher  to  the  punished 
is  that  of  pleasure-sharing,  so  their  relation,  when  occasion  for 
punishment  comes,  is  that  of  pain-sharing,  and  this  must  be  real- 
ized by  both.  The  only  way  by  which  the  punisher  can  avoid 
separating  himself  from  the  child  is  to  cause  the  child  to  know  that 
the  two  suffer  together.  The  punisher  is  not  to  triumph  over  the 
child,  is  not  to  be  happy  while  the  child  is  in  woe,  but  to  main- 
tain at-one-ment  alike  in  pleasures  and  in  pains. 

Turning-points  in  character.  We  have  seen  in  preceding 
chapters  why  the  educator  should  aim  at  continuous  moral 
growth  rather  than  rely  upon  any  breaks  provided  by  original 
nature.  In  the  present  chapter  we  have  dealt  with  another 
sort  of  continuity,  for  again  and  again  we  have  come  upon  the 


SIN  179 

fact  that  the  conduct  of  the  young  is  bound  up,  in  a  remarkably 
close  way,  with  that  of  their  elders.  But  neither  sort  of  con- 
tinuity implies  either  that  moral  growth  can  be  equally  rapid 
at  all  times,  or  that  all  parts  of  the  complex  moral  experience 
can  grow  at  the  same  rate,  or  that  it  can  be  free  from  crises, 
that  is,  such  collocations  of  internal  and  external  conditions 
that  the  child's  particular  reaction  at  this  time  gives  a  perma- 
nent direction  to  future  conduct,  or  in  other  words  a  "set"  to 
character.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  these  kinds  of  unevenness 
occur.  At  one  time  we  find  acceleration  of  moral  intelligence 
and  of  social  motives,  at  another  time  slowing  down;  interest 
now  in  this  phase  of  conduct,  now  in  that;  the  costliest  errors 
at  critical  points,  and  also  decisive  and  permanent  victories 
for  right  character.  Let  us  consider  the  educational  significance 
of  the  most  marked  of  these  deviations,  the  crises. 

The  turning-points  that  one  can  remember  as  one's  own  are 
almost  exclusively  those  of  adolescence  or  of  maturity.  Con- 
sequently we  form  a  habit  of  thinking  of  crises  of  character  in 
terms  of  issues  defined  at  the  time  and  involving  decisions  of 
greater  or  less  deliberateness.  But  a  set  toward  or  away  from 
a  particular  human  relationship,  or  a  particular  mode  of  reac- 
tion, may  be  established  whenever  an  overwhelming  emotion 
occurs  in  connection  with  it.  Shocks  occur  in  childhood  that 
produce  permanent  timidities  of  one  sort  or  another,  with  their 
paralysis  of  action  and  of  initiative.  Set  revulsions  or  attrac- 
tions toward  individuals,  or  set  attitudes  toward  the  opposite 
sex,  are  also  started  now  and  then  in  childhood.  Moreover, 
the  ground  tone  of  one's  subsequent  social  existence  may  be 
determined  by  early  experiences  that  awaken  trust  or  distrust. 
Thus  we  come  up  from  childhood  sometimes  with  permanent 
scars  upon  the  mind,  sometimes  with  a  permanent  outreaching 
impulse  toward  some  social  good,  neither  of  which  we  recognize 
the  source  of.  With  respect  to  these  things  the  wisdom  of  the 
educator  will  consist  not  only  in  providing  abundance  of  whole- 
some social  relationships,  but  also  in  the  habit  of  noting  chil- 
dren's emotions,  and  of  preventing  children  from  being  isolated 
and  merely  self-involved  upon  the  occasion  of  any  overwhelm- 


180  SIN 

ing  experience.  The  sharing  of  one's  emotions  with  a  sym- 
pathetic, steady,  and  social  minded  friend  is  the  sm-est  road 
to  balance.  Moreover,  if  the  passing  of  the  years  reveals  the 
presence  of  an  unfortunate  set,  again  the  task  is  to  induce  the 
victim  to  share  this  particular  side  of  his  nature  and  experience 
with  such  a  friend,  to  share  memories,  hopes,  fears,  victories, 
and  defeats.^ 

That  adolescence  has  a  peculiar  relation  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  final  set  of  character  is  evident  from  a  variety  of 
facts.  The  general  psychophysical  condition  renders  the  forma- 
tion and  reorganization  of  habits  relatively  easy  for  a  few  years, 
after  which  there  comes  the  relative  non-plasticity  of  maturity, 
and  its  absorption  in  the  compelling  grind  of  existence.  In 
this  period  the  new  capacity  for  affection  makes  possible  fresh 
and  profounder  ethical  appreciation.  The  general  maturing 
of  self-dependence  opens  the  way  for  a  final  commitment  of 
one's  purposes  to  some  life  principle  or  ideal.  Hence  the 
tribal  custom  of  adolescent  initiation;  the  custom,  in  various 
denominations,  of  confirming  children  just  as  adolescent  inter- 
ests begin  to  be  pronounced;  the  great  relative  frequency  of 
adolescent  conversions  in  denominations  that  cultivate  this 
experience,  and  the  frequency  with  which  a  lifelong  interest  or 
ambition  takes  its  rise  in  this  period.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
significance  of  adolescence  for  character  is  equally  clear  from 
the  great  number  of  criminal  careers  that  have  their  rise  here, 
and  from  the  vastly  greater  number  of  persons  who  are  pur- 
sued through  life  by  vicious  habits,  such  as  alcoholism  and 
licentiousness,  that  are  formed  at  this  time. 

1  "We  are  here  at  the  edge  of  the  morbidities  that  require  psychotherapy. 
We  should  find,  if  it  were  possible  to  go  into  them  in  this  work,  that  social 
education  and  psychotherapy  are  at  many  points  continuous  with  each  other. 
Two  points  in  particular  may  be  mentioned.  Less  rehance  is  placed  than 
formerly  upon  the  corrective  power  of  mere  suggestion,  and  more  upon  a  re- 
education of  the  will  in  which  the  patient  deUberately  co-operates  with  the 
suggestions  of  the  physician.  Here  habit  formation  assisted  by  the  social 
support  of  the  physician  is  the  essence  of  the  healing.  The  other  point  con- 
cerns the  value  of  bringing  one's  secrets  to  the  Ught  and  sharing  them  with 
another.  Psychoanalysis  has  many  aspects  and  angles  that  cannot  here 
be  mentioned.  But  its  relation  to  social  education  appears  in  its  method 
of  estabhshing  normal  attitudes  toward  society  at  large  by  first  securing 
complete  co-oper9,tion  between  physician  and  patient. 


SIN  181 

When,  alongside  these  considerations  the  recapitulation  theory 
placed  its  doctrine  of  the  natural  and  necessary  egoism  of  child- 
hood, the  inference  was  drawn  in  certain  circles  that  conver- 
sion in  the  sense  of  a  reversal  of  character,  or  in  the  sense  of  the 
beginning  of  genuinely  personal  religion,  is  a  standard  religious 
experience  for  adolescents.  We  have  already  seen,  however, 
how  the  theory  tliat  childhood  is  doomed  to  egoism,  and  that 
adolescence  is  spontaneously  altruistic,  overlooks,  oversimpli- 
fies, and  distorts  facts.  A  policy  of  religious  education  that 
postpones  the  beginning  of  personal  religion  of  a  social  sort  till 
adolescence,  relying  upon  the  chance  that  a  conversion  experi- 
ence will  reverse  the  set  that  childhood  has  given  to  the  char- 
acter, is  a  fatal  policy.  It  has  not  v/orked  in  practice.  For 
parallel  with  the  stream  of  adolescent  conversions  are  two  other 
streams  that  issue  from  the  Sunday  schools,  a  stream  of  youths 
who  come  into  full  church-membership  without  a  conversion, 
and  a  stream  of  those  who  go  on  into  mature  life  without  tak- 
ing any  religious  stand  at  all.  The  constant  aim  of  elementary 
religious  education  should  be  to  make  conversion  unnecessary.^ 

Nevertheless,  the  peculiar  plasticity  of  adolescence  does 
make  it  the  scene  of  many  a  decisive  experience.  It  contains 
the  main  turning-point  of  many  a  character.  Social  educa- 
tion has  here  a  distinctive  work  to  do.  On  the  positive  side  it 
is  threefold:  To  meet  the  spontaneously  enlarging  social  crav- 
ing by  providing  wholesome  social  experience  both  with  one's 
own  sex  and  with  the  opposite  sex;  to  guide  this  experience 
toward  intelligent  ideals  of  marriage  and  of  the  larger  society, 
the  democracy  of  God;  and  to  train  the  individual  specifically 
for  the  attainment  of  his  "majority,"  the  assumption  of  full 
and  independent  citizenship,  and  entrance  upon  a  life  occupa- 
tion. 

On  the  other  hand,  here  is  opportunity,  such  as  will  never 

1  One  of  the  evils  that  result  from  assuming  that  an  adolescent  conversion 
is  normal  is  weakening  and  confusion  in  the  term  "conversion."  It  should 
not  be  used  for  any  and  every  sign  of  reUgious  interest,  but  only  in  the  New 
Testament  sense  of  a  reversal,  "about  face,"  in  the  principle  or  policy  of 
one's  life. 

I  have  discussed  the  psychology  of  adolescent  conversions  at  considerable 
length  in  chap.  X  of  The  Psychology  of  Religion. 


182  SIN 

recur,  for  correcting  unsocial  sets  that  the  personality  may  have 
acquired.  These  sets  are  of  many  kinds.  In  one  case  a  par- 
ticular an ti-sociar habit  has]  to  be  conquered;  in  another  case 
there  is  needed  an  awakening  from  indifference,  or  from  mere 
drifting  with  a  social  current;  or  the  thrall  of  an  unwholesome 
social  connection  may  have  to  be  broken;  or  an  already  or- 
ganized self-centredness  may  have  to  be  undone;  or  one  may 
have  the  problem  of  consecration  to  a  particular  life  work. 
In  this  list  we  have  youths  who  require  conversion  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  but  we  have  also  cases  of  a  milder  sort  to 
which  the  term  conversion  cannot  be  applied  without  confusion. 
But  in  all  these  cases  alike  educational  methods  are  required — 
the  making  and  the  breaking  of  habits,  the  practice  of  co- 
operation, the  enlargement  of  ideals,  the  culture  of  worship, 
the  increasing  control  of  conduct  by  knowledge.  That  is, 
even  turning-points  in  character  that  involve  a  profound  re- 
versal are  to  be  included  under  the  notion  of  religious  education, 
and  they  are  therefore  to  be  planned  for,  controlled,  and  tested, 
by  educational  standards. 

Considerable  unsteadiness  and  confusion  exist  at  this  point. 
Many  persons  persist  in  thinking  of  education  as  identical 
with  instruction — persist  in  it  to  the  point  of  perversity.  Even 
some  who  know  that  education  has  to  do  with  the  forming  of  a 
will,  do  not  clearly  see  how  much  it  involves  besides  habit 
formation.  The  most  fundamental  thing  in  education  is  its 
constant  reconstruction  of  purposes.  Christian  education, 
when  it  Is  really  social,  is  through  and  through  an  Incoming  of 
the  higher  life,  a  renewing  of  the  mind,  a  laying  aside  of  lower 
selves.  If,  then,  one  of  our  pupils  has  already  formed  such 
perverse  purposes  that  his  present  need  is  conversion,  we  are 
still  to  proceed  as  educators.  We  should  never  turn  an  adoles- 
cent over  to  uneducational  evangelism. 

Evangelism  is  uneducational  to  the  extent  that  it  is  char- 
acterized by  any  of  these  things :  Separating  the  act  of  surrender 
to  God  from  devotion  to  men;  inducing  a  decision  so  general 
or  so  indeterminate  in  its  content  as  to  separate  it  from  the 
specific  decisions  involved  in  the  previous  and  the  subsequent 


SIN  183 

education  of  the  youth ;  awakening  aspiration  without  providing 
immediate  outlet  for  it  in  social  living;  separating  conversion 
from  habit  formation  on  the  one  side  and  from  intelligent 
analysis  on  the  other;  occasionalism,  or  postponing  specific 
dealing  with  the  adolescent's  purposes  to  a  particular  occasion, 
and  then  crowding  this  occasion  with  appeals  so  that  mental 
assimilation  is  impossible;  finally,  such  use  of  suggestion  and 
of  emotional  incitements  as  prevents  rather  than  promotes  the 
self-controlled  organization  of  purposes. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  LEARNING  PROCESS  CONSIDERED  AS 
THE  ACHIEVING  OF  CHARACTER 

Various  senses  of  "moral  character."  In  the  present 
chapter  certain  questions  that  are  fundamental  to  the  problem 
of  method  in  social  education  will  be  opened,  particularly  ques- 
tions that  have  to  do  with  the  pupil's  awareness  of  social  issues, 
and  with  his  self -consciousness  as  related  thereto.  What  are 
the  effects,  on  the  one  hand,  of  shielding  a  child  from  knowledge 
of  the  issues  that  we  are  training  him  to  meet,  and  on  the  other 
hand  of  letting  him  know  what  he  is  moving  toward  ?  What  is 
the  educational  value  of  moral  self-consciousness  as  compared 
with  unreflective  adjustment  to  social  situations?  How  shall 
we  conceive  social  character  in  individual  terms,  and  what 
sort  of  individual  consciousness  is  involved  in  the  achieving 
of  such  character  ?  In  order  to  clear  the  ground  for  these  ques- 
tions, it  is  necessary  to  note  that  each  of  the  main  terms  in- 
volved— character,  learning  process,  and  self-consciousness — 
has  several  senses.  Let  us  begin  with  the  concept  of  moral 
character. 

To  have  a  good  character  means,  of  course,  to  be  steady 
rather  than  merely  impulsive  in  one's  conduct,  and  to  pursue 
lines  of  conduct  that  have,  or  are  worthy  to  have,  social  approval. 
But  both  the  steadiness  and  the  worthiness  may  be  of  different 
kinds.  Good  character  may  mean,  and  actually  does  mean, 
any  one  or  more  of  the  following  things :  (1)  Negative  goodness, 
or  abstaining  from  acts  that  are  forbidden  by  the  code  that  is 
acknowledged  by  the  society  in  which  one  moves,  whether  this 
society  be  a  club,  a  church,  one's  profession,  or  the  world  of 
business.     (2)  Conventional  goodness,  or  habitually  doing  the 

184 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  185 

acts  that  are  positively  prescribed  in  such  a  code.  (3)  The 
inner  deternmiation  that  involves  self-discipHne  in  addition  to 
habit.  This  keeps  one '  true  to  standards  in  difficult  situa- 
tions. (4)  Steady  devotion  to  a  cause  or  social  ideal  that  outruns 
the  conventional  social  code,  and  perhaps  requires  that  it  be  revised. 

If  we  are  to  establish  the  democracy  of  God,  we  must,  it  is 
obvious,  cultivate  character  in  the  fourth  sense.  Just  at  this 
point  religious  education  finds  its  peculiar  function  and  its 
peculiar  difficulties  in  respect  of  method.  Society  as  it  now 
exists  is  quite  willing  to  support  an  educational  policy  that 
makes  for  negative  goodness  and  for  conventional  goodness; 
society  would  go  as  far,  if  it  knew  how,  as  to  produce  in  its 
children  the  "rock-ribbed"  fidelity  to  principle  that  constitutes 
character  in  the  third  sense.  Up  to  this  point  religious  educa- 
tion includes,  or  fuses  with,  whatever  there  is  in  "generaF* 
education  that  effectively  socializes  children.  But  beyond 
this  point  there  lie,  not  the  highways  of  social  conformity,  but 
the  mountain  trails  of  social  reconstruction.  Not  the  will 
that  is  conformed  even  to  what  is  good  in  conventional  social 
standards,  but  the  will  that  is  transformed  into  the  likeness  of 
the  divine  democracy  that  is  far  beyond  and  far  above,  is  the 
character  that  Christian  education  has  to  produce. 

From  many  points  in  the  valley  of  conventionality  men  are 
blazing  trails  up  the  steeps  of  social  idealism.  The  love  of  man- 
kind, confidence  that  human  nature  contains  high  possibilities, 
the  gleam  of  a  universal  justice  that  may  yet  be — these  are 
alluring  many  men  of  many  minds  toward  the  heights.  With 
these  men  religious  education  that  is  based  upon  the  ideal  of 
a  democracy  of  God  has  a  special  affinity.  We  may  agree 
or  not  with  this  or  that  program  of  social  reform;  we  must 
doubtless  make  many  experiments  before  we  shall  secure  con- 
trol of  essential  conditions  of  democracy,  and  some  of  these 
experiments  will  fail;  but  through  all  the  give-and-take  of 
debate  upon  social  programs,  and  through  all  the  practical 
measures  that  succeed  or  fail,  religious  education  will  have  the 
distinctive  task  of  producing  men  whose  motives  steadily  and 
uncompromisingly  reflect  the  will  of  the  Father  that  we  should 


186  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

make  ourselves  brothers.  The  democratizing  of  the  heart  is 
the  fundamental  and  the  most  difficult  part  in  creating  effective 
democratic  institutions.  Democratic  character  will  be  formed, 
of  course,  only  by  participation  in  specific  purposes  of  democratic 
quality,  and  it  will  go  on  to  require  democratic  institutions  for 
the  fulfilment  of  itself.  No  esoteric  goodness  will  suffice. 
But  our  specific  mission  will  be  to  put  sufficient  heart,  and  a 
sufficiently  radical  character,  into  this  work,  even  the  heart 
and  character  of  God. 

Various  senses  of  "to  learn."  To  learn  means  either 
(1)  To  form  a  habit;  or  (2)  To  acquire  information;  or  (3)  To 
attain  skill  in  a  particular  operation  or  occupation;  or  (4)  To 
become  wise.  No  one  can  mistake  the  fact  that  we  have  to 
learn  wisdom,  or  the  further  fact  that  learning  to  be  wise, 
though  it  depends  upon  and  includes  the  three  other  sorts  of 
learning,  is  not  quite  the  same  as  either  of  them  or  as  all  of 
them  together.  Becoming  wise  implies  acquiring  better  desires, 
reconstructing  one's  purposes,  self-conquest,  and  placing  one- 
self effectively  within  some  foresighted  scheme  of  society 
that  awakens  social  approval.  Wisdom  is  more  than  intelli- 
gence; more  than  craftiness,  however  successful.  It  is  more 
than  good  habits,  which  reproduce  good  life  but  do  not  trans- 
form the  good  into  the  better.  It  is  more  than  skill,  for  one 
can  be  skilful  in  getting  what  one  wants,  and  yet  be  unwise 
in  wanting  it.  Social  education,  then,  must  somehow,  at  some 
time,  or  perhaps  through  all  periods  of  the  child's  growth,  in- 
duct him  into  this  individual  relation  to  ideals.  It  must  in- 
spire in  him  an  original  foregrasping  of  social  good,  even  the 
faith  by  which  alone  we  can  be  saved  to  our  highest  possibilities. 

Various  senses  of  "moral  self-consciousness."  Everybody 
is  familiar  with,  and  everybody  who  reflects  disapproves,  the 
following  forms  of  moral  self-consciousness  in  children  and 
youth  as  well  as  in  adults:  (1)  Moral  priggery,  or  habitually 
thinking  about  one's  own  goodness,  habitually  bringing  it  to 
the  attention  of  others,  and  conforming  to  standards  for  this 
self-centred  reason.  (2)  Moral  snobbery,  or  looking  down 
upon  others  because  of  their  supposed  moral  inferiority.     (3) 


ACHIEVING   CHARACTER  187 

Moral  hypersensitiveness,  which  shows  itself  in  scruples,  hesi- 
tations, and  doubts  when  action  is  required;  in  self-condemna- 
tion so  intense  or  so  prolonged  as  to  interfere  with  moral  vigor; 
in  longings  for  an  abstract  and  contentless  perfection;  or  in 
failure  to  co-operate  in  practical  affairs  because  of  the  imper- 
fections that  inhere  in  all  social  adjustments  (which  is,  prac- 
tically, insistence  that  others  should  always  adjust  themselves 
to  me). 

In  contrast  to  all  this,  we  admire  a  child  who  does  his  duty  as 
a  matter  of  course;  doesn't  cry  too  much  over  spilled  milk, 
but  goes  ahead,  endeavoring  to  do  better  next  time;  and 
doesn't  bother  his  head  about  the  degree  of  his  virtuousness. 
This  is  sometimes  called  moral  unconsciousness,  which  is  then 
contrasted  with  moral  self-consciousness.  No  one  will  ques- 
tion the  justice  of  this  judgment,  but  the  grounds  for  it  are  not 
always  clearly  seen. 

What  is  the  precise  nature  of  the  evil  in  the  moral  self- 
consciousness  that  has  just  been  described?  It  is  that  the 
child  obscures  the  moral  goal  by  looking  at  his  moral  self.  Just 
as  a  golfer  is  required,  in  the  act  of  driving,  to  fix  his  attention 
upon  the  ball  and  not  upon  his  club,  so  moral  conduct  is  in 
general  most  effective  when  one's  attention  is  upon  what  is  to 
be  accomplished,  and  not  upon  one's  faults  and  virtues.  It  is 
this  objectivity  of  mind  that  we  praise  in  one  child  and  deplore 
the  absence  of  in  another.  We  praise  objectivity  of  mind 
because  it  is  a  condition  of  objective  efficiency.  Moral  self- 
consciousness  in  the  sense  thus  far  defined  connotes  in  the  end 
moral  clumsiness,  actual  defects  in  objective  social  relations. 

But  a  distinction  has  to  be  made,  and  the  possibility  of  an- 
other sort  of  moral  self -consciousness  has  to  be  considered. 
Does  the  misfortune  of  the  children  whom  we  have  in  mind 
lie  in  the  fact  that  they  judge  themselves  to  be  good  or  bad? 
Hardly,  for  the  so-called  morally  unconscious  child,  too,  is  by 
no  means  unaware  of  his  proper  classification.  If  my  fellows 
approve  me,  especially  if  I  am  approved  by  those  who  are 
older  and  wiser  than  I,  how  can  I  help  approving  myself  ?  The 
trouble  lies  partly  in  misjudging  oneself,  and  partly  in  failure 


188  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

to  organize  one's  judgments  of  oneself  into  a  social  scheme.  To 
be  good,  to  achieve  a  moral  status,  Is  not  a  moral  finality. 
I  am  a  good  boy,  or  a  good  man,  am  I  ?  Or  perhaps  a  bad  one  ? 
Well,  what  of  It?  What  difference  does  It  make?  That  Is, 
what  persons  are  affected  by  it,  and  how  are  they  affected? 
How  is  the  social  world  In  which  I  move  either  better  off  or 
worse  off  because  I  am  what  I  am?  When  I  thus  make  my 
judgment  upon  myself  a  part  of  a  more  general  judgment 
upon  social  welfare,  social  justice,  or  the  progress  of  world  so- 
ciety, my  self-consciousness  is  healthily  objective.  The  self- 
consciousness  that  stops  short  of  this  objectivity  becomes 
self -Involution,  and  "foozles  the  ball.'' 

Self-Involution  Is,  In  fact,  a  better  name  than  self-conscious- 
ness for  that  which  Is  common  to  moral  priggery,  moral  snob- 
bery, and  moral  hypersensltiveness.  Self -consciousness,  in 
the  stricter  and  more  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Is  present  when- 
ever what  is  actually  desired  is  distinguished  from  something 
else  as  an  alternative  or  contrary  object  of  desire.  That  Is, 
self -consciousness  Is  inseparable  from  the  facing  of  any  live  Issue, 
in  other  words,  one  that  Involves  mutually  exclusive  or  mutually 
limiting  satisfactions.  This  statement  is  not  Intended  as  a 
general  definition  of  self-consciousness  in  distinction  from  any 
other  sort  of  consciousness,  but  only  as  an  indication  of  the 
route  that  Is  taken  In  the  progress  of  a  mind  from  instinctive 
reactions  toward  those  that  are  required  by  membership  In  a 
deliberative  group. 

Moral  self-consciousness  and  deliberative  group  conscious- 
ness are  correlative — they  are  two  aspects  of  the  same  experi- 
ence. There  can  be  no  deliberative  group  the  members  of  which 
are  non-deliberative.  The  weighing  of  alternatives  takes  place 
within  each  individual,  who  then  compares  his  scales  and  his 
results  with  those  of  other  members.  Thus  each  has  to  be 
aware  both  of  himself  as  this  particular  self  and  of  others  as 
those  particular  selves,  each  self  being  charsLcterized  by  the 
alternative  that  It  cleaves  to.  Self -consciousness  is  thus  an 
essential  factor  in  the  evolution  of  society.  Social  education, 
accordingly,  must  bring  children  to  moral  self -consciousness. 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  189 

Neither  instinct,  nor  any  mere  drifting  Into  social  habits,  is 
sufficient  for  the  life  of  deliberative  society. 

It  is  true  that  much,  very  much,  that  is  socially  valuable  is 
acquired  by  imitation  or  in  response  to'  verbal  suggestion. 
Moreover,  constant  social  pressure  by  the  massing  of  pleasures 
in  one  direction  and  of  pains  in  the  opposite  direction  produces 
a  large  measure  of  conformity  without  deliberation.  Such 
conformity  is  natural,  is  economically  produced,  and  is  admi- 
rably "unconscious."  It  Is  an  essential  part  of  moral  education. 
But  its  educational  capacity  has  several  limitations: 

First,  Even  In  the  fundamental  matter  of  habit  formation 
self-consciousness  plays  a  most  Important  role.  In  many 
spheres  habits  are  most  easily  formed,  and  are  most  accurately 
adjusted  to  specific  needs,  when  at  the  beginning  contrasts  are 
noticed,  alternatives  faced,  and  the  first  acts  in  the  series  are 
fully  voluntary  rather  than  imitative  or  otherwise  suggestive 
in  origin.  This  is  the  way  to  acquire  skill.  It  Is  the  best  way 
to  acquire  various  social  habits,  such  as  punctuality  at  school, 
neatness  In  this  or  that  work,  proper  self-control  in  eating  and 
drinking,  and  constructive  charitableness. 

Second,  Imitation  and  other  forms  of  social  suggestion,  taken 
by  themselves,  transmit  the  imperfections  of  society  as  well  as 
its  virtues. 

Third,  Imitation  and  other  forms  of  social  suggestion  contain 
within  themselves  no  provision  for  situations  in  which  society 
is  divided  against  Itself.  Shall  one  go  with  the  majority  or 
with  the  minority?  "Unconscious  tuition,"  valuable  as  it  is, 
makes  little  contribution  to  a  problem  like  this.  Non-conform- 
ists, stubborn  minorities,  are  vital  organs  of  progressive  society. 
How,  then,  shall  the  pupil  be  trained  to  deal  with  them?  By 
the  use  of  suggestion  we  can  make  him  a  partisan,  often  an  active 
and  efficient  partisan,  of  any  party  with  which  he  has  happened 
to  associate  during  his  growing  years.  But  partisanship  does 
not  solve  the  problems  of  society.  A  genuine  social  solution  is 
never  merely  a  resultant  of  moving  bodies  that  collide.  Society, 
because  it  is  co-operation,  can  resolve  Its  strains  only  by  mak- 
ing individual  minds  feel  both  of  the  opposing  interests  that 


190  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

cause  the  strain.  When  any  citizen  does  this,  he  becomes  so- 
cially self-conscious.  Now,  this  part  of  a  citizen's  duty  does 
not  fulfil  itself  by  any  fresh  impulsive  outburst  upon  the  day 
that  one  becomes  qualified  to  vote.  Nay,  it  requires  long, 
persistent,  preliminary  training — training,  that  is  to  say,  in 
social  self -consciousness. 

But  self-consciousness  of  this  kind  is  the  precise  opposite  of 
self-involution.  Self-involution  sets  me  in  the  centre  of  a 
group  every  member  of  which  is  gazing  at  me;  wholesome  moral 
self-consciousness,  on  the  other  hand,  consists  in  so  control- 
ling my  eyes  that  they  shall  surely  see  some  object  other  than 
myself  toward  which  the  eyes  of  my  fellows  are  looking — shall 
see  it  because  they  are  looking  that  way.  Selfhood  of  this  type 
is  objective-minded  because  it  is  social-minded,  because  it  sees 
through  other  eyes  as  well  as  its  own.^  In  the  end,  then,  moral 
self-consciousness  is  not  so  much  a  preliminary  to  democracy, 
or  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  democracy,  as  it  is  democracy  it- 
self realized  in  an  individual  will. 

Ambiguities  in  the  debate  upon  "direct"  versus  "indirect" 
methods  in  moral  education.  The  conclusion  that  follows 
from  the  last  three  sections  is,  in  a  word,  that,  though  the 
guidance  of  instinctive  action  by  deliberate  prearrangement  of 
pleasures  and  pains,  and  the  development  of  wholesome  instinc- 
tive conduct  into  habits  without  premeditation  on  the  part 
of  the  child  are  fundamental  essentials  in  moral  education, 
sound  method  requires  also  specific  measures  for  promoting 
premeditation,  the  weighing  of  social  standards  themselves, 
and  the  fully  conscious  taking  of  one's  position  with  respect  to 
these  standards.  If,  now,  any  one  asks  whether  this  conclusion 
supports  "direct"  methods  in  moral  education,  no  simple  yes 
or  no  can  be  given  in  reply.  For  the  terms  "direct"  and  "in- 
direct" have  no  single  or  uniform  meaning  in  the  writings  of 
those  who  have  debated  this  question  now  for  several  years.  A 
veritable  medley  of  conceptions,  some  expressed,  others  im- 

1  Compare  what  was  said  in  the  last  chapter  about  keeping  the  attention  of 
children  upon  the  grounds  of  social  approval  and  disapproval  rather  than 
upon  the  approvers  and  disapprovers. 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  191 

plied,  gathers  particularly  around  the  "  direct  methods."     Thus, 
one  or  another  writer  thinks  that: 

The  direct  method  consists  in  telling  children  what  is  right  and 
what  is  wrong,  or  how  to  act. 

It  consists  in  ethical  instruction  as  distinguished  from  moral 
training. 

It  consists  in  setting  aside  a  particular  period  in  the  school  pro- 
gram for  morals  as  a  subject  of  instruction. 

It  consists  in  causing  children  to  single  out  and  define  the 
ethical  aspect  of  situations  as  distinguished  from  causing  children 
to  deal  with  each  situation  in  its  concrete  totality. 

It  consists  in  causing  children  to  reason  about  ethical  principles, 
and  trying  to  make  them  act  from  ethical  reasons  rather  than  from 
simple  and  wholesome  impulses. 

It  consists  in  Inducing  children  to  dwell  upon  their  own  moral 
excellences  and  defects. 

It  is  an  attempt  to  secure  good  conduct  by  exhortation  or  by 
emotional  pressure. 

It  is  moralizing,  or  contemplating  goodness  by  itself,  in  the 
absence  of  any  occasion  for  exercising  the  kind  of  goodness  that 
is  under  contemplation. 

It  consists  In  imposing  our  moral  notions  upon  children,  or  in 
securing  good  conduct  from  them  by  pressure  from  without  as 
distinguished  from  action  from  within  In  response  to  a  situation 
that  the  child  himself  appreciates. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  designation  "indirect"  is  given  to 
methods  that  are  variously  characterized  as  follows: 

The  use  of  suggestion,  rather  than  either  compulsion  or  reason- 
ing, to  secure  good  conduct. 

Rehance  upon  school  organization,  classroom  management, 
playground  supervision,  and  the  personality  of  the  teacher,  as 
supplying  both  material  and  method  for  moral  education. 

Getting  moral  reactions  by  means  of  actual  moral  situations  as 
distinguished  from  the  Imaginary  situations  of  mere  instruction. 
More  fully  expressed,  moral  growth  through  solving  the  problems 
that  arise  in  one's  own  social  experience. 

Discussing  moral  problems  when  they  arise  in  the  pupil's  actual 


192  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

conduct  rather  than   according  to  a  systematic  plan — ^that  is, 
''incidental"  moral  instruction. 

Training  for  the  larger  society  by  bringing  the  school  curriculum 
into  closer  relation  therewith,  and  in  general  by  getting  the  school 
out  of  its  social  isolation. 

That  there  is  some  fundamental  difference  between  these  two 
bundles  of  conceptions  one  easily  feels.  But  just  what  the  dif- 
ference is  when  it  is  traced  downward  to  its  psychological 
assumptions,  or  upward  to  details  of  practice,  is  not  always  so 
obvious.  In  respect  to  practice,  we  find  ambiguities  like  this: 
An  argument  against  direct  instruction  is  coupled  with  an 
argument  for  training  the  pupil  to  analyze  situations  so  as  to 
pick  out  the  moral  element  in  them.  As  an  example  of  correct 
method  an  instance  is  given  in  which  a  principal  dealt  with 
cheating  in  school  work  by  explaining  to  the  pupils  that  they 
were  dishonest,  and  that  cheating  is  stealing.  Where  lies  the 
indirectness  in  this  case?  The  principal  went  directly  at  the 
pupils  and  at  the  ethical  problem,  and  he  did  it  analytically, 
not  by  suggestion.  Some  writers  treat  story-telling  as  an  in- 
stance of  direct  method;  others  classify  it  as  indirect. 

What  is  needed  here  is  a  more  strictly  psychological  ap- 
proach; that  is,  we  need  to  ask  what  happens  in  the  pupil's 
mind.  What  are  the  two  things  that  are  to  be  either  directly 
or  indirectly  related  to  each  other  in  the  pupil's  experience? 
Himself  and  his  teacher?  Or  himself  and  another  pupil?  Or 
himself  and  the  larger  society  of  which  he  is  to  become  an  adult 
member?  Or  his  ideas  on  the  one  hand  and  his  acts  on  the 
other?  And  what  is  it  for  any  of  these  to  be  either  directly 
or  indirectly  related  to  the  other  ?  It  is  directness  as  compared 
with  indirectness  in  the  pupil's  own  mind  that  we  have  to  deal 
with. 

Method  in  moral  education  follows  the  general  principles 
of  good  teaching.  The  polemic  against  "direct"  methods  in 
moral  instruction  and  training  is  at  bottom  a  part  of  the  general 
campaign  for  better  teaching.  The  defects  of  the  old  practice, 
whether  in  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  or  of  morals,  have  their 
roots  in  these  assumptions : 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  193 

(1)  The  intellectualistic  assumption  with  respect  to  the 
relation  of  knowledge  to  life,  namely,  that  thought  first  grasps 
reality  and  then  adjusts  life  to  it.  The  new  education  reflects 
the  contrary  view,  that  the  adjustment  process  and  the  cogni- 
tive process  are  not  two  but  one.  Jesus  intimated  that  up- 
reach'  ,  conduct  is  a  condition  of  knowing  the  higher  things — 
those  who  put  something  divine  into  their  acts  are  the  ones  who 
know  the  things  of  God.  Just  so,  modern  educational  reformers 
in  a  long  procession  have  proclaimed  that  we  learn  by  doing, 
that  experience  of  the  real  world  is  the  basis  of  vital  instruction 
about  it,  that  participation  in  the  elements  of  industrial  processes 
is  essential  to  education,  and  that  character  grows  by  fulfilling 
one's  functions  in  some  social  group. 

(2)  The  undemocratic  assumption  that  to  teach  is  to  im- 
pose the  teacher's  thought  and  will  upon  the  pupil.  Here  is 
social  bias  of  the  most  serious  import.  It  ever  seeks  to  justify 
itself  by  considerations  drawn  from  the  incapacity  of  children 
for  self-guidance.  But  it  is  ever  self-condemned  because  there 
is  lacking  in  it  any  provision  for  bringing  pupils  to  genuine  self- 
guidance,  especially  to  the  union  of  co-operation  and  liberty 
that  are  essential  to  popular  government.  The  old  type  of 
teaching  assumed  that  the  use  of  authority  is  simply  to  control 
others  for  any  good  end;  the  new  type  assumes  that  the  use  of 
authority  is  to  bring  others  to  self-control,  emancipating  them 
from  external  controls.  The  only  authority  to  which  the 
teacher  has  any  right  is  that  which  is  continuously  extinguish- 
ing itself. 

Accordingly,  the  reform  that  is  now  demanded  in  school 
practice  insists  not  only  that  pupils  shall  be  active  rather  than 
passive,  but  also  that  they  shall  act  from  within,  and  shall 
organize  their  activities  through  their  own  reflection.  Instruc- 
tion in  the  natural  and  physical  sciences,  for  example,  now  aims, 
not  merely  to  transfer  a  given  amount  of  biology  or  of  physics  to 
the  pupil,  but  to  bring  him  up  to  perform  scientific  processes 
himself,  and  if  possible,  to  make  him  an  independent  investi- 
gator. Just  so,  the  moral  aim  of  the  school  requires  that  the 
pupils  be  led,  not  only  to  hold  correct  views  of  conduct,  not  only 


194  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

to  accept  loyally  and  to  act  upon  the  superior  wisdom  of  their 
elders,  but  also  to  perform  among  themselves,  each  for  himself, 
here  and  now,  the  actual  processes  of  social  living  under  free- 
dom. 

These  processes  are  not  to  be  mere  applications  of  what  the 
teacher  tells  or  prescribes.  The  teacher,  instead  of  giving  solu- 
tions, which  are  then  to  be  merely  illustrated  by  pupil  experi- 
mentation, engages  the  pupils  in  a  genuine  trial-and-error 
method  of  learning  to  live.  This  is  the  method  by  which 
society  as  a  whole  has  evolved.  Education  is  able  to  make  the 
process  a  short  one,  abbreviating  it  into  the  score  or  so  of  years 
during  which  the  school  has  the  child,  by  making  available  the 
rich  social  materials  that  have  been  deposited  by  the  experi- 
ence of  the  race.  The  art  of  the  teacher  consists.  In  no  small 
measure,  in  making  obvious,  at  the  right  moment,  the  applica- 
bility of  this  or  that  part  of  the  social  inheritance  to  the  present 
purposes  of  the  pupils.  In  this  way  waste  of  time  and  of  effort 
is  reduced,  and  conformity  to  social  standards  is  most  cer- 
tainly produced.  Conformity,  that  is,  from  the  heart,  because 
it  is  self-induced.  But  by  this  method  conformity  is  secured 
through  freedom,  and  it  carries  with  it  the  training  in  objective 
moral  criticism  that  is  necessary  to  social  progress  through 
revision  of  social  standards. 

Sound  method  in  moral  education,  then,  will  cause  children 
to  face,  directly  and  analytically,  their  relations  to  one  an- 
other, to  their  teachers,  and  to  the  larger  society.  It  will  not 
build  up  a  structure  of  moral  ideas  apart  from  moral  action, 
nor  will  it  be  content,  on  the  other  hand,  with  conduct,  however 
appropriate,  that  does  not  grow  into  reflective  self-control  and 
weighing  of  standards.  Just  as  the  best  teaching  of  arithmetic, 
or  of  manual  processes,  or  of  physics  causes  the  child  to  realize 
what  he  is  doing,  why  he  does  it,  what  the  results  are,  and  how 
it  can  be  improved,  so  in  morals  it  is  open-eyed,  forward-looking, 
and  in  this  sense  self-conscious,  practice  that  counts  most  for 
the  formation  of  a  democratic  character. 

The  relation  of  ethical  thinking  to  virtuous  action.  From 
every  point  of  view  the  lines  of  our  discussion  converge  upon  the 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  195 

conclusion  that  the  learning  process  with  which  moral  educa- 
tion is  chiefly  concerned  is  an  achieving  process — the  process  of 
achieving  character.  But  character,  not  as  something  static, 
already  accomplished;  rather,  character  conceived  as  making 
oneself  count  for  objective  ends.  Here  we  find  a  touchstone 
for  the  curriculum  aspect  of  any  scheme  of  moral  or  religious 
education. 

What  value  does  this  touchstone  reveal  in  curricula  that 
divide  and  subdivide  and  arrange  lesson  material  according  to 
a  schedule  of  the  virtues  Into  which  good  character  can  be 
analyzed  ?  If  we  ask  what  a  good  man  is  like,  we  get  from  such 
curricula  the  answer  that  a  good  man  is  truthful.  Industrious, 
persevering,  kind,  and  so  on.  Therefore  the  pupil  Is  made  to 
study  in  succession  the  virtues  of  truthfulness,  industry,  and 
all  the  others.  There  are  curricula  that  appear  actually  to 
assume  that  if  a  pupil  thinks  about  industry  he  will  become 
industrious.  But  the  teaching  profession  as  a  whole  condemns 
the  implied  method  on  the  ground  that  It  separates  thought 
from  life,  substitutes  ethical  instruction  for  character  forma- 
tion, and  tends,  by  reason  of  its  abstractness  and  its  dryness, 
to  create  actual  dislike  for  moral  standards.  If,  in  order  to 
create  like  instead  of  dislike,  admiration-awakening  examples 
are  used,  the  objection  is  made  that  such  separation  of  ethical 
emotion  from  moral  action  creates  a  habit  of  feeling  rather  than 
of  action,  and  actually  substitutes  sentiment  for  character. 

In  order  to  avoid  these  pitfalls,  suppose  that.  In  connection 
with  the  study  of  each  virtue,  we  provide  opportunity  for  the 
practice  of  It.  There  is  going  on,  in  fact,  considerable  hunting 
up  of  things  that  children  can  do  in  the  way  of,  shall  we  say, 
practice  work  in  goodness?  That  this  search  will  uncover  some 
really  vital  things  in  the  moral  reactions  of  children  we  need 
not  doubt.  But  the  artificiality  of  the  point  of  view  is  at 
best  only  alleviated  thereby.  For  any  such  practice  is  merely 
added  to  life.  What  is  added  to  life  can  be  subtracted  upon 
occasion.  It  is  too  like  an  ex«cursion  in  a  captive  balloon;  the 
balloon  returns  to  earth. 

The  whole  scheme  rests  upon  the  fundamental  fallacy  that 


196  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

virtuous  character  Is  made  up  by  combining  virtues,  whereas, 
the  virtues,  one  and  all,  are  abstractions,  mere  thought-things, 
and  therefore  static  only.  Our  concern  is  not  that  the  pupil 
should  possess  virtues,  but  that  he  should  have  virtue,  that  is, 
strength  in  right  causes.  Here  two  conceptions  are  essential, 
firmness  of  action,  and  discriminated,  objective  ends.  Now, 
objective  moral  ends  or  "causes"  are  those  that  arise  in  inter- 
actions between  individuals.  In  fact,  only  through  social  give- 
and-take  do  ends  of  any  sort — ^whether  wealth,  science,  or  artis- 
tic production — become  anything  more  than  self-involution. 
Ethical  ends,  such  as  charitable  relief,  follow  the  same  law. 
As  long  as  my  charitable  act  is  simply  an  outlet  for  me,  a  mere 
doing  for  another,  it  contains  a  fatal  ethical  defect.  Real 
charity,  or  love,  is  doing  with  another.  Moral  character  im- 
plies, then,  that  one  has  found  something  important  to  do  that 
requires  the  union  of  several  wills,  and  it  implies  also  that  one 
is  firmly  devoted  to  getting  this  thing  done. 
The  consequences  for  moral  education  are  these: 

(1)  The  primary  material  for  moral  analysis  is  to  be  derived 
from  the  child's  experienced  relations  with  persons,  that  is,  from 
his  ordinary,  every -day  social  contacts  with  both  children  and 
adults,  whether  in  the  school,  on  the  playground,  on  the  street, 
at  home,  in  church,  in  buying  and  selling,  or  wherever. 

(2)  Imaginative  material,  whether  historical  or  other,  is  to 
be  selected  on  the  basis  of  its  continuity  with  what  the  child 
has  already  experienced  in  his  relations  with  living  persons,  and 
it  is  to  be  so  used  as  to  assist  in  the  analysis  of  these  relations. 
To  this  point  I  shall  return  in  a  subsequent  section. 

(3)  The  natural  growth  of  these  contacts  from  the  family 
hearth  outward  yields  a  principle  for  the  gradation  of  material. 
Home,  church,  school  and  playground,  local  community, 
national  community,  world  community — these  form  a  natural 
ascending  order  of  social  contacts  and  of  social  interests  and 
functions.  But  this  is  an  order  of  increasing  complication; 
it  is  not  a  stairway  in  which  each  step  is  left  behind  in  the  act 
of  reaching  the  next  higher.  We  are  not  to  graduate  from  the 
home,  but  deeper  and  deeper  into  it,  nor  from  the  school,  but 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  197 

further  and  further  into  the  system  of  education  until  we  take 
upon  ourselves  full  responsibility  for  the  schooling  of  others. 

(4)  In  all  this  material  the  centre  for  the  pupil's  attention 
is  men  and  women,  particularly  what  they  do,  why  they  do  it, 
what  the  results  are,  and  how  perhaps  something  better  might 
have  happened.  What  father  and  mother  do,  and  why  it  needs 
to  be  done ;  what  each  family  helper  does ;  what  the  grocer,  the 
postman,  the  physician,  the  policeman  does;  what  the  mayor, 
the  councilman,  the  police  judge  does;  what  a  school,  a  fire  de- 
partment, a  library,  an  art  museum,  a  natural  history  collec- 
tion does;  how  charities  are  organized  and  what  they  accom- 
plish; why  the  Child  Labor  Association  exists  and  what  it  is 
doing — it  is  unnecessary  to  finish  this  inventory,  for  already  it 
must  be  clear  that  in  the  actual  organization,  work,  and  pur- 
poses of  persons  as  social  agents,  all  the  way  from  preparing 
the  family  breakfast  to  promoting  world  peace,  we  have  the 
concrete  material  for  enabling  the  pupil  to  form  definite  social 
purposes  of  his  own.  In  subsequent  chapters  we  shall  see  how 
this  principle  applies  to  the  child's  relation  to  the  church. 

With  a  large  proportion  of  the  persons  involved  in  this  in- 
ventory children  can  have  some  personal  contact.  The  most 
significant  thing  about  a  grocery  is  the  grocer,  not  his  goods. 
Guide  the  child's  knowledge  of  the  goods  so  that  it  shall  include 
acquaintance  with  the  purveyors  of  them,  and  let  buying  and 
selling  be  guided  so  that  it  shall  be  mutual  service  between  buyer 
and  seller.  Treat  institutions  in  the  same  way.  The  library 
clerk  and  the  doorman  at  the  museum,  for  example,  are  to  be 
discriminated  from  the  things  that  they  handle,  and  are  to  be 
recognized  as  persons  with  whose  acts  the  child's  own  life  is 
bound  up, 

(5)  The  irreducible  factors  in  a  morally  educative  situation, 
whether  it  is  encountered  in  experience  or  only  in  imagination, 
are  persons  in  their  concrete  individuality.  The  presence  of 
persons  is  what  makes  a  situation  ethical.  Because  they  are 
individual,  irreducible,  present  as  persons  or  not  at  all,  a  child's 
moral  progress  consists,  not  in  achieving  one  sort  of  moral  good- 
ness now,  another  next  year,  but  in  increasing  control  of  whole 


198  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

personal  situations.  Thus,  in  abiding  relations  like  the  family, 
he  will  show  a  firmer  will  to  co-operate  (ability  to  act  socially 
under  greater  strains),  and  ability  to  co-operate  in  more  ways. 
In  addition,  as  his  social  relations  grow  more  complicated,  he 
will  put  into  them  one  after  another  the  same  intelligent,  con- 
structive good  will.  Progress  like  this  is  not  likely  to  corre- 
spond with  any  possible  serial  order  of  virtues  or  qualities  of 
character.  Progress  does  not  consist  in  any  increase  of  a  qual- 
ity, but  in  achieving  ends  in  "real  life.''  One  phase  of  such 
progress  can  be  measured  by  testing  the  changes  that  occur 
in  the  pupil's  ideas  concerning  social  relations,  but  only  one 
phase.  The  full  measure  of  any  method  of  moral  education  is 
the  part  played  by  the  pupil  in  actual  social  relations. 

Imagination  and  character.  Social  education  by  conscious 
effort  at  adjustment  to  social  reality  describes  the  platform 
that  we  have  now  reached.  What,  then,  of  story-telling,  and 
what  of  the  world's  treasure  of  imaginative  literature?  What 
relation  has  imagination  to  the  realistic  educational  processes 
that  are  fundamental?  This  problem,  looked  at  from  the 
psychological  angle,  is  wider  than  it  is  ordinarily  supposed  to 
be.  For  the  contents  of  imagination  are  not  at  all  restricted 
to  what  is  called  imaginative.  Historical  characters  and  events 
are  made  concrete  to  me  by  the  same  process  that  enables  me  to 
grasp  a  fairy-tale.  When  I  read  the  morning  paper,  too, 
imagining  events  that  the  paper  describes  is  what  puts  me 
into  touch  with  the  real  world.  Yes,  it  is  imagination  that 
puts  me  into  touch  with  myself  and  with  my  immediate  environ- 
ment. It  does  it  by  holding  before  me  my  own  yesterday, 
or  my  own  hour-ago,  and  also  by  holding  before  me  the  picture 
of  some  possible  future  good.  Here,  moreover,  we  have  not 
only  a  reproductive,  but  also  a  productive,  inventive,  creative 
process,  and  it  is  productive  most  of  all  where  fresh  adjustment 
to  reality  is  taking  place. 

^  A  child's  imagination  is  a  stage  upon  which  programs  of 
possible  action  are  rehearsed,  with  himself  always  as  one  of  the 
actors,  albeit  he  is  also  a  spectator.  Small  children  do  their 
thinking  largely  in  story  form,  their  thinking  even  of  situations 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  199 

that  to  grown-ups  are  prosily  literal.  This  is  a  necessary  part 
of  the  trial-and-error  method  of  learning  to  live.  The  trial- 
and-error  method,  when  it  is  educationally  used,  is  no  mere 
lunging  about  until  one  happens  to  hit  upon  success,  but  the 
following  of  programs  of  action  previously  discriminated  from 
other  possible  programs,  and  then  noting  the  results.  In 
the  imaginative  rehearsals  that  are  so  characteristic  of  chil- 
dren, particular  parts  are  assigned,  distinctions  of  social  quality 
are  recognized,  relations  of  social  cause  and  effect  are  to  some 
extent  noted,  and  the  imaginer  himself  assumes  a  character. 
This  assumed  character  may,  under  favorable  conditions,  per- 
sist as  an  attitude  or  special  readiness  for  action  after  the  dra- 
matic rehearsal  is  over.  An  attitude  is  an  initial  stage  in  ac- 
tual conduct;  there  is  momentum  in  it.  Thus  it  is  that  the  im- 
aginary can  control  the  actual  with  children  and  with  adults. 

This  rehearsing  can  take  place  in  a  story  that  a  child  is  listen- 
ing to  as  truly  as  in  one  that  he  invents.  It  is  safe  to  assume 
that  any  child,  when  he  listens  to  a  story  in  which  the  actors  dis- 
play contrasting  social  characters,  takes  one  of  them  as  himself. 
In  a  certain  kindergarten  a  story  was  told  of  a  wild  duck  that 
protected  her  ducklings  from  a  pursuer  b}^  hiding  them  among 
rocks  along  a  shore,  sa;>dng:  "Don't  one  of  you  stir,  don't  one 
of  you  make  a  sound,  don't  even  whisper."  Then  the  story 
went  on:  "Not  one  of  them  stirred,  not  one  of  them  made  a 
sound,  not  one  of  them  even  whispered."  At  this  point  a  boy 
was  heard  to  gasp :  "  I  couldn't  do  that ! "  The  child  who  made 
this  remark  was  the  one  of  all  the  group  who  was  having  the 
hardest  time  learning  to  think  twice  and  to  await  his  turn. 
Obviously  this  listening  child  was  at  work  upon  his  own  social 
problem,  upon  realities,  and  it  is  equally  obvious  that  to  arrive 
at  such  a  true  judgment  upon  one's  faults  is  a  natural  step  toward 
correcting  them. 

The  social  experience  and  experimentation  that  produce 
social  growth  can  be  extended,  then,  by  imagination.  There 
is  no  necessary  break  between  a  fairy-story,  an  incident  in  the 
life  of  a  historical  personage,  and  to-day's  playground  experi- 
ence.    It  is  the  teacher's  business  to  select  and  to  use  imagina- 


200  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

tive  material,  fiction  as  well  as  history  and  current  events,  so 
that  there  shall  be  in  it  no  break  with  real  life.  The  match- 
less power  of  Jesus  as  a  teller  of  educative  stories  lies  in  part  in 
the  utter  continuity  of  the  life  process  in  his  tales  with  that  of 
his  hearers.  If  only  the  actors  in  stories  for  children  are  made 
to  act  from  simple  motives  in  situations  that  are  not  too  com- 
plicated or  far-fetched,  continuity  with  child  life  is  possible  in 
material  that  is  derived  not  only  from  child  life,  but  also  from 
adult  life,  animal  life,  and  the  realm  of  myth,  folk-lore,  and  fairy- 
tale. Plant  life,  too,  and  even  inanimate  objects  can  be  used  by 
endowing  them  with  human  motives.  Mountains  can  break 
forth  into  singing,  and  the  trees  of  the  field  can  clap  their  hands. 

Parents  and  teachers  of  very  young  children  have  the  special 
problem  of  helping  their  pupils  to  grasp  the  difference  between 
fiction  and  history.  The  clew  to  this  problem  lies  in  the  truth 
that  there  is  no  necessary  break  between  fiction  and  "real" 
life.  The  distinction  is  not  that  between  stories  that  are  true 
and  stories  that  are  not  true.  There  is  nothing  in  any  language 
more  true  than,  say,  the  fictitious  narratives  that  Jesus  told. 
The  difference  between  one  of  his  tales  and  history  lies  in  the 
sphere  in  which  the  event  takes  place.  The  story  sphere  is 
human  motive;  the  historical  sphere  adds  the  full,  socially  com- 
plicated bodily  expression  of  motive;  both  spheres  are  real, 
and  they  are  continuous  with  each  other.  "  Thou,"  said  Nathan 
to  David,  "ari  the  man."  The  Priest,  the  Levite,  and  the 
Samaritan  are  realities  within  our  own  breasts.  Santa  Claus, 
the  spirit  of  Christmas  giving,  is  a  blessed  reality,  and  so  are 
the  other  good  fairies. 

Under  favorable  conditions,  I  have  said,  an  imaginatively 
assumed  character  may  persist  as  an  attitude  in  overt  action. 
Probably  the  part  that  one  plays  in  one's  imagination  invariably 
has  some  tendency  toward  conduct  of  like  quality.  But  the 
tendency  may  be  greater  or  less,  and  it  may  be  more  or  less 
thwarted  by  the  setting  that  it  has  in  the  imaginary  event. 
The  teacher  has  the  task,  not  merely  of  causing  the  pupil  to 
rehearse  imaginatively  some  sort  of  good  act,  but  also  that  of 
arranging  the  other  factors  in  the  rehearsal  so  that  a  particular 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  201 

attitude  shall  persist  and  pass  on  into  the  child's  relations  with 
some  actual  human  being.  Before  stating  what  this  positively 
requires,  we  may  well  pause  to  consider  some  methods  that  fail, 
and  why  they  fail. 

Moralizing,  or  telling  children  what  the  application  of  the 
story  is,  interferes  with  the  educative  process  by  drawing  atten- 
tion away  from  the  concrete  and  particular  to  the  abstract  and 
general.  It  interferes  likewise  by  injecting  the  teacher's  per- 
sonality into  the  situation.  If  the  story  is  an  appropriate  one 
appropriately  told,  connection  ^vith  life  is  already  there  as  the  child 
listens.  To  introduce  a  new  vehicle  to  carry  him  over  from  the 
story  into  life  is  to  create  distraction.  Nor  is  this  the  worst  of 
it.  For  moralizing  creates  a  new  attitude  of  the  pupil  toward 
the  story  as  a  whole.  A  moment  ago  he  w^as  living  in  the  story; 
now  he  sees  that  the  story  has  no  reality  to  the  teacher,  but  is 
only  an  extended  way  of  uttering  an  abstraction;  so  the  imaginary 
becomes  for  him  the  unreal;  and  the  goodness  and  the  badness  in 
the  story  cease  to  be  live  issues.  A  healthy  child  is  very  likely, 
under  these  circumstances,  to  form  a  habit  of  regarding  moral 
rules  as  prosy  impositions  upon  life,  dull  things. 

A  method  much  in  vogue  in  sermons  to  children  is  teaching  by 
analogy.  A  sensible  object  is  presented,  or  a  physical  or  chemical 
experiment  is  performed,  or  an  event  in  external  nature  is  de- 
scribed, and  the  attention  of  the  children  is  then  invited  to  the 
similarity  between  this  thing  or  process  or  event  and  life  issues  of 
right  and  wrong.  The  method  is  apparently  an  attempt  to  take 
advantage  of  children's  spontaneous  interest  in  sense-objects  and 
in  sensible  happenings,  and  to  move  the  child  mind  on  from  the 
sense-level  to  the  level  of  ethical  thought  and  appreciation.  But 
the  device  rests  upon  a  fundamental  misunderstanding.  Ana- 
logical thinking  is  not  characteristic  of  children.  They  must  have 
a  larger  range  of  identities  between  the  things  that  they  compare, 
going  from  person  to  person,  say,  with  ease,  but  not  from  the 
properties  of  physical  things  to  qualities  of  character.  When 
children  hang  upon  the  preacher's  words  as  he  expounds  an  anal- 
ogy they  are  likely  to  be  attending  to  the  physical  side  of  the 
analogy  only.  A  minister  once  illustrated  "Thou  desirest  truth 
in  the  inward  parts"  by  holding  up  a  watch  and  calling  attention 
to  the  effects  that  would  follow  if  the  little  wheels  inside  it  got 


202  ACHIEVING  CHARACTER 

rusty.  A  small  boy  reported  the  minister  as  having  said  that 
**If  you  tell  lies  you'll  get  rust  in  your  stomach."  In  such  cases 
the  child's  attention  fixes  upon  the  symbol  so  intently  as  not  to 
move  on  with  the  preacher  from  the  symbol  to  the  thing  sym- 
bolized. In  short,  the  imaginative  material  by  means  of  which 
children  get  control  of  actual  social  situations  is  that  which  has 
a  large  rather  than  small  number  of  elements,  and  particularly 
motives,  that  are  continuous  with  those  of  the  child's  social  experi- 
ence. 

The  positive  conditions  under  which  a  dramatically  assumed 
moral  attitude  is  most  likely  to  pass  on  into  conduct  are  in 
general  those  that  favor  "transfer  of  training."  The  fact  that 
a  child  has  been  trained  to  neatness  in  his  arithmetic  papers 
does  not  of  itself  guarantee  that  he  will  be  equally  neat  in  his 
map-drawing;  the  fact  that  a  man  is  truthful  in  certain  relations 
or  with  certain  persons' does  not  prevent  him  from  being  untruth- 
ful in  a  different  set  of  relations  or  with  a  different  set  of  persons. 
The  transfer  of  neatness,  or  of  trutlifulness,  or  indeed  of  any 
habit,  from  one  situation  to  another  depends  upon  such  condi- 
tions as  the  number  of  points  in  which  the  two  situations  are 
identical  with  each  other,  and  the  definiteness  with  which  one 
has  faced  and  understood  and  accepted  as  one's  ideal  the  prin- 
ciple that  is  involved  in  the  good  habit  in  question.  A  large 
part  of  the  present  chapter  has  a  bearing,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
upon  the  transfer  of  moral  training.  For  we  have  been  occupieci 
with  the  difference  between  particular  good  habits  on  the  one 
hand  and  readiness  for  moral  discrimination  on  the  other,  and 
between  the  exercise  of  good  will  upon  conventional  levels  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  carrying  forward  of 
good  will  into  reconstruction  of  standards.  The  particular 
application  of  the  principles  of  transfer  to  the  use  of  stories,  his- 
tory, current  events,  or  other  material  of  the  imagination,  is  as 
follows: 

There  must  be  many  rather  than  few  elements  in  the  imagined 
situation  that  are  identical  with  elements  in  social  situations 
aheady  experienced  by  the  child.  By  identical  elenients  in  social 
situations  I  mean,  not  the  externals  of  life,  but  persons,  their  char- 


ACHIEVING  CHARACTER  203 

acteristic  interactions,  and  consequences  of  conduct  as  they  are 
determined  by  laws  (natural  laws  and  laws  of  the  state)  and  cus- 
tom. 

The  imagined  situation  should  be  so  constructed  and  presented 
as  to  contain  a  social  problem  of  a  type  that  the  child  has  already 
encountered,  together  with  at  least  some  steps  toward  the  solu- 
tion. Something  unsettled,  suspense,  light  coming  from  the 
consequences  of  conduct,  these  consequences  occurring  not  ar- 
bitrarily or  by  chance  but  in  accordance  with  the  actual  laws  of 
life — all  this  should  be  in  the  imagined  situation  itself,  so  that 
the  teacher  does  not  need  to  translate  anything  into  a  different 
language. 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  that  the  material  should  represent 
important  laws  of  life;  these  laws  must  be  made  to  seem  impor- 
tant. There  must  be  perspective.  This  is  to  be  had,  not  by 
telling  the  child  what  is  important  but  by  the  selection  and  ar- 
rangement of  details,  as  in  climaxes,  and  by  such  methods  as 
emphasis,  repetition  of  key-phrases,  and  tone  of  voice.  Discus- 
sion of  the  story  by  the  pupils  under  suggestive  guidance  from  the 
parent  or  teacher,  and  dramatization  under  such  guidance,  add 
still  further  to  the  production  of  perspective  as  well  as  to  depth 
of  impression. 

Whatever  be  the  proportions  of  pleasure  and  pain,  joy  and  sad- 
ness, in  the  personal  experiences  portrayed  in  the  story,  these 
experiences  must  be  so  organized  and  presented  that  the  child 
who  listens  will  imaginatively  side  with  the  right  against  the 
wrong,  and  get  pleasure  from  doing  so.  Not,  indeed,  pleasure 
without  cost,  not  the  pleasure  of  passivity,  for  this  would  be 
untrue  to  the  realities  of  the  moral  life.  Struggle,  pain,  failures, 
sacrifice  must  not  be  slurred  in  the  content  of  the  story,  or  in  the 
pupil's  imaginative  participation  in  it.  He  must  be  led  at  times 
to  take  sides  with  what  is  hard  and  disagreeable,  and  even  this 
taking  of  sides  in  imagination  will  cost  him  an  effort.  Yet  there 
should  be  here  also  the  joy  of  winning,  some  realization  that  the 
socially  right  alternative  is  more  agreeable  than  its  opposite.  It 
is  easy  to  dislocate  the  pleasure  of  the  listening  child;  the  story 
may  be  very  different  to  him  from  what  it  is  to  the  teacher.  "Chil- 
dren," said  a  clergyman  in  a  talk  to  a  Sunday  school,  "when  you 
get  to  heaven,  whom  do  you  want  to  see  first?"  A  ten-year-old 
boy,  being  pressed  for  an  answer,  replied:  "Goliath." 

When  an  actual  situation  subsequently  arises  that  involves  a 


204  ACHIEVING   CHARACTER 

problem  that  has  already  been  at  least  partly  solved  in  a  story, 
the  skilful  use  of  a  phrase  from  the  story,  or  a  mere  allusion  to  an 
event  in  it,  may  help.  But  not  if  reminding  constitutes  nagging, 
and  whether  it  does  constitute  nagging  or  not  depends  upon  the 
pupU's  attitude  toward  it,  not  upon  the  teacher's  intention.  But 
we  must  not  forget  that  a  normal  child  who  lives  in  wholesome  social 
relations  desires  to  be  helped.  He  wants  to  achieve.  No  conceal- 
ment is  necessary,  no  subterfuge.  The  effective  reminder  is  the 
one  that  brings  him  this  help,  and  makes  him  feel  that  doing  right 
is  made  easier.  Here  is  another  instance  of  the  law  that  in  moral 
training  the  major  keys  of  pleasure  must  predominate.  This  is 
the  reason  why  humor  is  so  valuable  both  in  story  material  and  in 
direct  relations  between  teacher  and  pupil,  humor,  that  is  to  say, 
that  enables  the  teacher  to  laugh  with  the  pupil,  not  at  him. 


PART  IV 

THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  A  SOCIALIZED 
RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  CHRISTIAN  REORGANIZATION  OF 
THE  FAMILY 

The  family  as  a  determiner  of  the  social  type.  When  does 
a  human  being  make  his  debut  into  society  ?  When  he  is  born 
into  the  common  Hfe  of  mother,  father,  and  child.  A  family  is 
a  society,  and  it  is  an  educational  institution  of  the  very  first 
significance.  "Where  was  he  educated?"  is  often  asked,  and 
the  answer  is  given:  "In  such  or  such  a  college,"  or  perhaps: 
"In  the  public  schools  of  his  State,"  whereas  the  most  that 
school  and  college  are  likely  to  have  contributed  to  him  is  some 
sort  of  superstructure  built  upon  foundations  of  social  char- 
acter already  laid.  Just  as  it  was  said  of  Peter,  "Thou  also 
art  one  of  them,  for  thy  speech  maketh  thee  known,"  so  any 
observant  teacher  sees  in  a  student's  manners  and  in  his  use  of 
language  an  index  of  his  home  life.  And  deeper  than  words 
and  accents,  deeper  than  manners,  is  a  substratum  of  social 
presuppositions  and  social  attitudes  that  home  life  has  already 
made  firm. 

The  reason  why  family  life  has  peculiar  influence  in  respect 
to  the  social  substratum  of  the  character  is  this:  The  long  de- 
pendence of  the  child  for  so  many  of  his  satisfactions  upon  the 
same  few  persons,  and  the  intimacy  and  continuity  of  his  rela- 
tions with  them.  In  this  intimacy  with  persons  he  deals  with 
what  is  elemental  and  final  in  the  ethical  and  the  religious  life. 
Many  parents  believe  that  the  social  experiences  of  small  chil- 
dren are  insignificant,  mere  time-fillers  that  are  to  pass  away 
with  the  time  that  they  occupy,  whereas  these  experiences  form 
firm  notions  of  what  a  person  is,  of  what  is  due  from  one  person 
to  another  as  a  person,  and  of  what  concerns  in  life  are  im- 

207 


208  THE  FAMILY 

portant  or  unimportant.  These  notions  become  the  presupposi- 
tions of  futures  thinking  on  social  relations.  They  are  wrought 
into  habits,  too,  and  are  bound  up  with  whatever  life  purpose 
or  ambition  a  child  or  youth  forms. 

The  family,  moreover,  is  not  an  isolated  society,  for  Into  and 
out  of  it  flows  the  life-blood  of  civilization  in  the  large.  Through 
his  parents  the  child  is  under  the  tutelage  of  the  traditions,  cus- 
toms, and  economic  conditions  that  have  made  his  parents  to 
be  what  they  are.  Thus  it  is  that  a  social  standpoint,  high  or 
low.  Christian  or  un-Christian,  may,  through  the  personal  in- 
timacy of  parent  and  child,  become  to  the  child  a  self-evident 
and  even  sacred  thing.  No  child  merely  plays  around  the  out- 
side of  society.  In  the  intimacy  of  the  family  every  member, 
younger  or  older,  is  a  feeling  part  of  social  processes.  He  is 
included  within  a  network  of  concrete  relations  between  per- 
sons— between  the  stronger  and  the  weaker,  between  male  and 
female,  between  buyer  and  seller,  between  the  employer  and  the 
employed.  The  child  is  not  prepared  to  weigh  these  relations. 
He  knows  not  how  to  sift  out  the  wheat  that  is  always  there. 
He  may  even  accept  injustice  to  himself  as  something  that  be- 
longs within  natural  and  proper  social  relations.^ 

It  is  the  fundamentals  of  social  justice  that  are  at  stake 
in  the  child* s  experience  in  his  father's  family.  Family 
government,  to  begin  with,  tends  to  fix  one's  ideas  as  to  the 
basal  rights  of  men.  Consider  the  educational  difference  be- 
tween a  family  in  which  each  child,  however  young,  has  rights 
that  the  older  and  stronger  members  respect,  and  a  family  in 
which  no  child  is  aware  that  he  has  any  rights  that  are  respected 
by  his  own  father  and  mother,  or  by  older  brothers  and  sisters. 
Genuine  parental  affection  can  be  mixed  with  caprice  and  self- 

I  The  educational  power  of  family  intimacies  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
almost  universal  regard  for  family  honor.  There  are  few  things  that  awaken 
anger  and  resentment  as  uniformly  as  opprobrious  remarlss  about  one's  family. 
A  stiU  more  remarkable  illustration  is  the  rarity  of  incest.  There  is  nothing 
in  our  instinctive  endowment  to  make  incestuous  relations  unattractive. 
Yet  a  traditional  standard,  passed  down  from  generation  to  generation  merely 
as  a  presupposition  about  which  almost  nothing  is  said,  holds  instinct  in 
complete  control,  nay,  has  all  the  force  of  a  negative  instinct  or  impossibility 
of  desire. 


THE  FAMILY  209 

will,  and  genuine  self-sacrifice  may  lack  real  respect  for  the  per- 
sonality of  the  one  on  whose  behalf  the  sacrifice  is  made.  Even 
a  firm,  steady,  and  genuinely  benevolent  family  government 
may  fail  to  produce  in  the  children  any  heartfelt  respect  for  law 
simply  because  the  government  to  which  they  are  subjected  is 
an  autocracy.  Thus  it  is  that  out  of  the  same  domestic  spring 
may  come  water  both  bitter  and  sweet — regard  for  some  rights, 
disregard  for  others  equally  basal;  respect  for  persons  in  one 
classification,  disrespect  for  persons  in  another;  tenderness  in 
some  human  relations,  callousness  in  others;  sincere  belief  in 
the  Christian  ideal  of  brotherhood,  sincerity  in  conduct  that 
obviously  defeats  it. 

Here  is  the  explanation  of  the  paradox  in  a  rather  common 
attitude  of  men  toward  women.  Almost  every  child  experi- 
ences tender  maternal  affection;  hence  almost  every  man  re- 
tains through  life  some  capacity  for  noble  emotion  with  respect 
to  his  own  mother  and  with  respect  to  motherhood  in  general. 
Men  who  have  this  emotion  commonly  assume  that  they  hold 
an  exalted  view  of  womanhood.  Yet  many  of  them  regard 
marriage  as  properly  the  subjection  of  a  woman  to  a  man. 
Many  of  them  are  willing  to  accept  profits  that  depend  upon 
risks  to  the  health  and  the  morals  of  working  women.  Men 
glorify  motherhood  in  one  breath,  and  in  the  next  buy  from 
a  hundred  girls  their  capacity  for  competent  motherhood ! 
Moreover,  how  is  it  that  reverence  for  womanhood  "because 
one  has  had  a  mother"  can  exist  in  the  same  breast  with  accep- 
tance of  prostitution  as  a  matter  of  course?  The  key  to  this 
situation  is  this :  Boys — and  girls  too — acquire  in  the  family  a 
second  sort  of  presupposition  with  respect  to  womanhood,  a 
presupposition  based  upon  the  habitual  attitude  of  the  males 
in  the  family  to  wife,  daughter,  or  sister.  How  far  would  one 
overshoot  the  truth  if  one  should  assert  that  rarely  does  a  boy 
acquire  in  his  own  family  a  firm  presupposition  that  girls  are 
his  equals?  It  is  because  boys  grow  up  as  intimate  parts  of 
actual  sex  inequality  that  men  fail  to  see  the  grotesqueness  of 
the  assumption  that  one  sex  has  an  inherent  right  to  determine 
the  "proper  sphere'*  of  the  other.     Is  there  not,  in  fact,  a  trace 


210  THE  FAMILY 

of  condescension  or  patronage  even  in  the  common  glorification 
of  "mother"  ?     Admiring  tenderness  is  easier,  too,  than  justice. 

Thus  it  is  that  fundamental  social  assumptions  and  habits — 
those  that  concern  the  valuation  of  the  individual,  personal 
liberty,  social  classifications,  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  the  right 
of  property,  the  nature  of  law,  alid  the  sphere  of  government — 
flow  from  the  large  society  into  the  small  family  society,  and 
thence  back  into  the  large  society.  If  we  desire  to  reform  any 
one  of  them,  there  can  be  no  more  effective  measure  than  to 
induce  parents  to  reorganize  family  life.  If  the  Christian 
churches  really  believe  in  universal  brotherhood,  with  its 
inevitable  corollary  of  a  world-democracy,  let  them  begin  now 
to  form  democratic  presuppositions  and  habits  at  the  source. 
" "  On  what  conditions  can  family  life  educate  for  democracy? 
The  general  answer  is.  By  being,  in  its  measure,  a  co-operative 
group  of  the  deliberative  type.  The  family  is  to  prepare  chil- 
dren for  democracy  by  being  itself  a  democracy.  On  the 
face  of  the  matter,  is  it  not  absurd  to  think  that  inequality  and 
arbitrary  rule  within  the  society  in  which  an  individual  spends 
his  most  plastic  years  can  prepare  him  to  labor  toward  a  society 
that  is  based  on  exactly  contrary  principles  ? 

It  will  be  objected,  of  course,  that  any  attempt  to  make  the 
family  into  a  deliberative  group  will  hit  upon  the  rock  of  chil- 
dren's incapacity  for  deliberation,  the  discontinuity  of  their 
attention,  the  fact  that  it  is  child  nature  to  act  immediately  in 
one  way  or  another.  Does  not  the  practical  impossibility  of 
suspense  and  postponement  render  it  necessary  for  the  father 
and  the  mother  to  make  decisions  for  the  child,  blocking  the 
way  to  harmful  acts,  and  moving  him  by  their  power  rather 
than  his  own  into  wholesome  ways?  To  argue  thus,  however, 
is  to  miss  the  main  point  of  the  problem,  and  to  act  thus  is  to 
miss  an  opportunity  for  the  social  education  of  the  young. 
The  main  question  is.  What  sort  of  experience  tends  to  make  the 
child  into  a  socially  deliberative  individual  ?  What  is  the  most 
certain  and  the  most  rapid  way  to  enfranchise  him?  To  pro- 
vide the  conditions  for  this  sort  of  experience  is  the  base-line  of 
social  education.     Upon  this  basis  the  family  must  present  to 


THE  FAMILY  211 

the  child  opportunity  for  fellowship  in  fundamental,  outgoing 
brotherhood.  An  outline  of  some  of  these  conditions  will  in- 
dicate the  direction  in  which  the  Christian  reorganization  of 
the  family  has  to  move. 

(1)  Abajidon  the  doctrine  and  the  practice  of  the  inequality  of 
the  sexes.  If  children  are  bred  in  the  assumption  that  even 
among  the  persons  with  whom  they  have  the  most  intimate  and 
affectionate  relations  nature  itself  has  established  a  permanent, 
impassable  division  between  the  rulers  and  the  ruled,  the  served 
and  the  servers,  if  children  go  into  the  world  saturated  with  any 
such  assumption,  the  males,  already  accustomed  to  the  in- 
dividualistic satisfactions  of  a  superior  caste,  will  tend  to  lord 
it  wherever  they  can,  and  the  females,  unaccustomed  to  free 
initiative,  will  withhold  from  society  services  that  they  are  by 
nature  well  qualified  to  render.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a  way  in 
which  Christianity  could  more  decisively  promote  appreciation 
of  humanity  as  such,  which  is  the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  than 
the  abolition  of  the  sex  caste  in  Christian  families. 

Tender,  admiring,  reverential  affection,  ennobling  though 
it  be  to  the  one  who  feels  it,  is  no  proper  substitute  for  the 
recognition  of  equality.  Not  seldom  tenderness  contains  in  it- 
self the  unrecognized  but  cruel  poison  of  wanting  to  keep  its 
object,  whether  wife  or  child,  permanently  dependent  and  in- 
ferior. On  the  other  hand,  the  recipient  of  such  regard  is  often 
pampered  thereby  into  selfish  receptivity,  or  else  beguiled  into 
a  narrow,  almost  slavish  devotion  which  in  turn  pampers  the 
man  who  accepts  it.  Thus,  love  itself,  acting  under  the  assump- 
tion of  permanent  inequality  between  the  lovers,  arrests  the 
growth  of  the  social  capacities  of  both.  Even  within  the  family 
this  arrest  often  manifests  itself  in  hypertrophied  demands  of 
either  lover  upon  the  other.  Whether  or  not  children  witness 
such  marital  infelicity,  they  have  no  experience  that  enables 
them  to  see  the  social  significance  of  the  inequality  in  the  midst 
of  which  they  live.  They  take  this  inequality  as  a  matter  of 
nature,  as  something  self-evident.  They  accept  the  satis- 
factions that  it  brings,  or  accommodate  themselves  to  the  limi- 
tations involved,  and  so  go  into  the  world  with  a  fundamental 


212  THE  FAMILY 

defect  in  their  faith  in  man  and  in  their  preparation  for  a  world 
brotherhood. 

(2)  Develop  capacity  for  deliberative  group  life  by  respecting 
and  effectively  utilizing  any  such  capacity,  however  slight,  that 
any  member  already  possesses.  The  right  to  be  heard,  the  right 
to  have  one's  ideas  and  desires  weighed  by  others,  is  the  re- 
verse side  of  the  duty  to  listen  and  to  be  ready,  when  the  com- 
mon good  requires  it,  to  waive  one's  wishes.  The  reciprocal 
relation  between  rights  and  duties  holds  not  only  as  between 
adult  and  adult,  but  also  as  between  adults  and  children.  Par- 
ents who  do  not  listen  and  weigh  ought  not  to  be  surprised  if 
their  progeny  is  heedless  and  stiff-necked.  Parents  who  never 
"own  up"  to  a  fault,  and  never  make  open  amends,  may  expect 
to  encounter  the  same  sort  of  infallibility  in  their  children.  The 
difficulty  of  developing  a  democratic  family  organization  lies 
less  in  children's  limitations  than  in  the  stiffness  and  unadap- 
tability  that  are  fostered  by  current  conceptions  of  parental 
dignity  and  authority.  Children  like  to  talk  things  over  seri- 
ously when  they  know  that  the  outcome  of  the  conversation  has 
not  been  arbitrarily  predetermined.  An  artificial  class-dis- 
tinction exists  in  many  a  family  because  parents  underestimate 
the  thought-capacity  of  their  children.  What  surer  way  can 
there  be  to  create  in  children  a  class-consciousness  that  is  un- 
sympathetic and  impervious  to  parental  authority?  Any- 
thing that  prevents  the  honest,  serious,  and  effective  utilization 
of  childish  capacities  tends  to  stunt  them.  To  be  a  listening 
parent  implies  much  more  than  giving  attention  to  com- 
plaint or  clamor  when  it  arises;  it  means  also  consulting  chil- 
dren, sharing  with  them  the  really  important  problems  of  the 
family,  and  letting  them  participate  in  working  out  solutions. 
It  means,  too,  that  this  consultative  relation  between  parent 
and  child  is  to  be  extended  and  developed  as  fast  as  the  child's 
mental  grasp  increases, 

(3)  In  a  democratic  family  each  member  will  perform  regular, 
defined,  personal  services  for  the  maintenance  of  the  common  life. 
This  innocent-looking  proposition  is  full  of  sharp  points.  Each 
member  will  contribute  personal  service,  which  is  a  thing  that 


THE  FAMILY  213 

money  cannot  buy  and  that  cannot  be  done  by  proxy.  Personal 
service  may  take  the  form  of  earning  money  for  family  use,  but 
there  is  much  "supporting  one's  family"  that  does  not  include 
giving  oneself.  Providing  plenty  of  "servants"  is  not  at  all  the 
same  as  contributing  personal  service.  Every  member  of  the 
family  will  be  in  his  own  person  a  servant  of  the  family,  being 
made  thereby  conformable  to  the  Great  Servant  who  has  re- 
vealed in  his  own  person  the  great  God.  Here  child  and 
parent  will  meet  on  the  truly  democratic  plane  of  industry, 
useful  labor,  done  co-operatively  for  the  common  weal,  and  with 
no  compensation  except  the  common  weal.  Finally,  the  ser- 
vice that  is  required  of  each  individual  will  have  a  defined 
sphere,  beyond  which  one  may  indeed  give  but  no  one  may  de- 
mand. When  the  service  of  love,  freely  given,  becomes  sub- 
serviency to  unregulated,  and  hence  unsocialized,  calls  for 
service,  the  result  is  little  more  than  slavery.  Its  undemocratic 
character  is  not  relieved  by  the  fact  that  the  slave  loves  the 
master  and  willingly  obeys. 

(4)  In  a  democratic  family  each  member  will  have  a  defined 
sphere  in  which  he  is  entitled  to  initiative,  and  likewise  one  in 
which  his  own  judgment  is  final.  Dependence  of  a  child  upon  the 
decisions  of  others  is  to  be  reduced  as  rapidly  as  is  consistent 
with  physical  safety,  health,  and  the  continuance  of  his  educa- 
tion. Doing  for  oneself  all  that  one  is  competent  to  do  is  a 
significant  contribution  to  the  common  weal,  and  it  is  highly  ed- 
ucative. Self-reliant  experimentation  must  be  encouraged  even 
though  we  are  certain  that  errors  will  be  made,  and  from  the 
uncomfortable  effects  of  his  errors  a  child  must  not  be  too  much 
shielded.  The  important  thing  is  not  to  get  the  most  perfect 
possible  immediate  result,  but  to  promote  growth,  to  develop 
individuality  that  is  both  independent  and  co-operative.  A 
good  example  of  the  principle  is  presented  by  certain  parents 
who  grant  each  child  a  regular  allowance  of  money,  require 
open  and  accurate  accounting,  increase  the  amount  with 
growth,  and  require  each  child  increasingly  to  purchase  his  own 
clothing  from  his  own  income,  first  with  aid  from  the  parent  in 
the  way  of  explanations  as  to  colors,  durability,  style,  etc.,  but 


214  THE  FAMILY 

later  without  consultation.  What  a  blunder  it  is  to  keep  on 
deciding  everything  for  a  child  up  to  young  manhood  or  young 
womanhood,  under  the  expectation  that  then,  by  some  hocus- 
pocus  of  benevolent  nature  he  will  suddenly  acquire  good  judg- 
ment !  And  the  worst  thing  about  this  policy  is  not  that  it 
puts  upon  young  men  and  young  women  tasks  for  which  they 
have  not  been  prepared,  but  that  it  leaves  their  social  capacities 
uncultivated.  To  keep  children  dependent-willed  as  long  as 
possible  is  to  isolate  them  into  a  social  class  even  under  their 
father's  own  roof.  Denying  them  the  experience  of  progressive 
co-operative  judging,  it  fits  them  for  none  but  arbitrary  social 
relations  thereafter. 

(5)  Democracy  in  the  family  is  to  he  promoted  by  providing 
common  pleasures.  Not  long  ago  I  learned  of  a  family  in  which 
the  father  as  well  as  the  mother  takes  part  regularly  in  the  chil- 
dren's daily  story  hour  preceding  bedtime.  In  another  instance 
a  father  and  mother  provided  a  combination  dining-table  and 
billiard-table,  and  evening  after  evening  played  interesting 
matches  with  their  children.  It  is  a  sinister  sign  if  father, 
mother,  adolescent  boy,  and  adolescent  girl  must  all  go  out  of 
the  home  and  away  from  one  another  in  order  to  have  a  good 
time.  The  sign  is  sinister  even  if  the  diversions  that  are  sought 
are  unobjectionable  in  themselves,  for  the  absence  of  common 
pleasures  is  the  absence  of  a  most  important  social  cement. 
When  a  parent  and  a  child  frolic  together  they  become  ac- 
quainted with  each  other.  Each  finds  in  the  other  personality 
riches  that  would  otherwise,  perhaps,  be  unsuspected.  Family 
life  is  famishing  for  want  of  deep  acquaintance  between  parents 
and  their  owti  offspring.  And  not  only  do  common  pleasures 
reveal  one  to  another,  but — under  the  basal  law  of  habit  forma- 
tion that  satisfaction  in  an  act  tends  to  prolongation  and  repeti- 
tion thereof — they  help  toward  the  deep  and  permanent  attach- 
ments that  hold  through  adversity  as  well  as  through  happiness. 
Thus  it  is  that  playing  together;  enjoying  literature,  music, 
and  pictures  together;  making  family  excursions  into  the  open; 
going  together  to  places  of  amusement,  and  even  common  in- 
dulgence in  jolly  nonsense  have  the  deep  ethical  value  of  join- 
ing person  to  person  in  a  society  of  reciprocal  good  will. 


THE  FAMILY  215 

(6)  The  unity  of  the  family  cannot  he  made  perfect  until  family 
consciousness  is  fused  with  a  udder  social  consciousness,  particu- 
larly through  participation  by  all  members  of  the  family  in  remedial 
and  constructive  social  enterprises.  The  mere  fact  that  the 
children,  when  they  marry,  and  in  the  social  acquaintanceships 
that  precede  marriage,  link  their  own  family  with  others  is  of 
itself  sufficient  to  prove  that  regard  for  one's  own  flesh  and  blood 
is  an  expansive  principle.  The  weal  of  my  family  is  inextri- 
cably bound  up  in  a  thousand  ways  with  that  of  others.  Chil- 
dren of  different  families  play  together,  go  to  school  together; 
infect  one  another  with  disease  germs,  with  smutt}^  ideas,  with 
bad  habits;  later  they  employ  one  another  or  are  employed, 
they  bargain  with  one  another,  they  vote  for  or  against  one  an- 
other, they  determine  the  sanitary  and  moral  conditions  of 
the  community.  The  child  of  wealth  who  was  infected  with  a 
fatal  disease  by  wearing  a  garment  made  in  a  sweat-shop  illus- 
trates a  solidarity  that  no  individual  or  family  can  escape. 
There  is  simply  no  possibility  of  fulfilling  love  in  a  narrow  circle 
except  by  treating  the  circle  as  a  section  of  the  total  social 
sphere.  The  exclusive  family  is  the  self-undermining  family. 
Therefore  the  building  up  of  deliberative  group  living  in  the 
family  must  be  continuous  with  the  building  forth  of  the  same 
thing  in  the  community.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  father 
should  contribute  of  his  substance  and  of  his  energy  to  the  out- 
going social  enterprises  of  the  church  or  of  the  neighborhood — 
the  family  as  a  family  should  talk  them  over,  weigh  the  needs, 
form  a  united  purpose,  and  work  together  for  the  fulfilment  of  it. 

Even  young  children  can  participate  from  the  heart  in  great 
social  enterprises  because  the  greatness  of  a  social  enterprise 
grows  out  of  the  elemental  character  of  the  human  need  that  it 
seeks  to  meet.  There  is  perhaps  no  defect  of  society  that  does 
not  inflict  hunger  and  sickness  upon  children,  and  this  appeals 
to  any  child.  Moreover,  children's  imaginations  easily  seize 
upon  some  point  of  difference  between  better  and  worse  social 
conditions — between  good  and  poor  school  buildings  and 
grounds;  clean  and  unclean  streets  and  alleys;  sanitary  fac- 
tories and  unsanitary  sweat-shops;  humane  and  inhumane 
conditions  in  industries  and  in  housing;    war  and  peace,  and 


216  THE  FAMILY 

much  more.  When  the  missionary  enterprise  is  clearly  con- 
scious of  Its  social  calling,  it  comes  home  to  children  with  the 
force  of  reality,  and  not  as  an  abstract  propaganda.  The  par- 
ticipation of  children  In  the  social  movement  should,  of  course, 
be  graded;  new  enterprises  will  allure  as  power  of  analysis  and 
continuity  of  purpose  grow.  But  this  does  not  mean  that 
small  children  can  have  a  vital  part  in  none  but  small  enter- 
prises. The  elemental  character  of  their  social  attitudes  joins 
them  directly  and  simply  with  their  elders  in  great  undertak- 
ings. And  besides,  fellowship  with  a  parent  in  doing  some- 
thing that  the  parent  feels  to  be  Important  brings  its  own  de- 
light, its  own  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  matter. 

Finally,  a  noble  common  purpose,  and  united  labor  and  If 
need  be  suffering  for  another,  are  essential  to  the  full  realiza- 
tion of  Intimate  affection.  If  we  go  back  far  enough  in  the 
evolution  of  marriage  we  find  that  mating  Is  a  temporary 
affair,  not  yet  marriage  in  the  proper  sense.  How  Is  it,  then, 
that  such  fleeting  sex  attraction  has  grown  as  far  as  it  has 
already  done  toward  lasting  conjugal  affection?  In  spite  of 
prevalent  defects  In  marriage,  and  of  the  great  underworld  of 
infidelity  on  the  part  of  both  the  married  and  the  unmarried, 
the  world  already  contains  numberless  instances  of  unsullied, 
lifelong  affection  between  one  man  and  one  woman,  and,  more- 
over, in  the  presence  of  a  standard  like  this  the  world  does  not 
condemn  the  standard  but  Itself,  or  at  most  seeks  excuses  for 
the  despite  that  It  still  does  to  such  love.  What  has  brought 
this  about  is  the  presence  of  children  who  needed  long  years 
of  care.  Thus,  historically  considered,  conjugal  affection  is 
not  the  prius  of  parental  love,  but  just  the  reverse.  It  Is  the 
child  who  binds  the  parents  together.  Love  grows  rich  enough 
to  defy  time  and  the  fluctuations  of  sexual  desire  because  there 
is  common  work  for  the  lovers  to  do,  yes,  because  their  fondness 
,for  each  other  goes  out  and  takes  in  a  third.  This  Is  not  an 
isolated  fact,  but  a  law  of  life.  Idle  affection  grows  stagnant. 
Our  friendships,  our  social  circles,  our  churches,  and  our  fam- 
ilies find  life  for  themselves  only  as  they  bestow  life  upon 
others. 


THE  FAMILY  217 

(7)  These  conditions  cannot  he  met  without  the  domestication  I 
of  private  property.  Family  life  is  psychophysical.  Affection 
between  its  members  is  embodied,  incarnate.  The  family 
table  is  not  only  its  symbol,  but  also  one  of  its  important  in- 
struments. In  the  fellowship  of  eating  and  drinking  the  domes- 
tication of  private  property  is  taken  for  granted.  "  If  any  pro- 
videth  not  for  his  own  .  .  .  household,  he  hath  denied  the  faith, 
and  is  worse  than  an  unbeliever."  But  if  this  is  so  obvious, 
why  do  we  not  see  that  upon  the  same  principle  all  the  property 
that  any  member  of  the  family  has  should  be  domesticated? 
For  what  is  property  if  not  means  for  human  life  ?  And  what 
is  the  right  of  property  if  not  a  call  to  the  enlargement  of  life? 
And  what  is  the  family  but  partnership  in  life  and  in  the  pro- 
motion of  living?  And  how  can  there  be  the  supreme  fellow- 
ship of  a  common,  outgoing  purpose  if  one  member  of  the 
group  is  the  autocratic  master  of  the  means  whereby  the  group 
itself  lives  and  of  the  means  whereby  the  group  might  enrich 
other  life  than  its  own?  The  reservation  of  such  mastership 
as  a  right,  even  though  its  actual  exercise  be  liberal,  is  simply 
incompatible  with  the  thorough  domestication  of  the  master's 
will. 

Christian  teaching  has  long  recognized  that  there  is  a  cleft 
between  property  as  a  legal  right  and  property  as  a  moral 
obligation.  The  law  sustains  me  absolutely  if  I  withhold  my 
goods  while  my  neighbor  starves;  it  protects  the  sharp  bar- 
gains whereby  I  accumulate  goods  at  the  expense  of  others; 
and,  as  to  the  family,  it  lays  upon  me  only  the  mild  obligation 
of  feeding,  clothing,  and  sheltering  wife  and  children,  leaving 
to  my  sense  or  my  whim  the  feeding  or  the  starving  of  their 
other  capacities.  Our  religion  constantly  admonishes  us  to 
be  better  in  these  respects  than  the  law  requires  us  to  be.  But 
at  the  centre  of  the  problem  of  private  property,  which  is  the 
family  hearth,  there  is  as  yet  no  clear  interpretation  of  the 
Christian  law  of  brotherhood.  The  common  assumption  is  that 
God  requires  nothing  more  of  the  individual  in  whom  the  legal 
title  inheres  than  a  certain  arbitrary  benevolence  toward  the 
members  of  his  own  family.     The  admonition  to  even  this 


218  THE  FAMILY 

modicum  of  virtue  is  not  vociferous  1  This  assumption  lacks, 
too,  the  definiteness  of  the  legal  right  to  withhold — a  right  that 
individualistic  love  of  power  guards  with  jealousy,  and  even 
confuses  with  moral  right. 

Here,  in  short,  is  an  ancient  wall  of  division  within  the  family 
itself,  a  class  distinction,  a  fundamental  denial  of  brotherhood. 
Property  comes  between  persons.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  a  wall  of 
glass  only;  any  member  of  the  family  may  look  through  it  at 
the  good  deeds  wrought  by  the  member  who  is  on  the  other 
side,  but  one  may  not  reach  one's  hands  through  so  as  to  share 
in  the  doing  of  the  good  deeds.  In  how  many  churches  do  hus- 
bands and  wives  make  contributions  as  equals?  How  many 
holders  of  the  purse  escape  being  infected  with  the  silent  as- 
sumption that  those  whom  one  "supports"  are  dependents, 
inferiors,  persons  to  be  controlled  by  giving  and  withholding,  or 
perchance  favorites  who  are  to  be  attached  to  oneself  by  lar- 
gesses ?  ^ 

This  is  not  the  atmosphere  of  democracy,  and  children  who 
are  brought  up  in  it  are  not  being  adequately  prepared  to  take 
the  full  part  of  a  Christian  in  the  great  and  growingly  acute 
economic  struggle.  To  be  merciful  and  to  be  moderate  will 
not  be  sufficient  to  reconstruct  our  social  order.  Something 
far  more  sacrificial  will  be  required  of  us  if  the  distribution  of 
goods,  which  is  the  distribution  of  power  and  opportunity  to 
live,  is  to  become  brotherly.  Even  if  we  are  not  yet  certain 
which  of  several  forks  of  the  road  to  take  in  the  legal  revision 
of  economic  inequalities  and  injustices,  there  is  no  reason  why 
we  should  not  set  to  work  at  once  to  give  love  full  sway  in  family 
education.  This  will  involve,  first  and  foremost,  the  beginning 
of  economic  enfranchisement  for  married  women  by  the  volun- 
tary act  of  husbands.  It  would  be  a  great  step  if  a  stated 
amount  were  to  be  received  by  each  married  woman  as  her 
earnings,  to  be  disposed  of  with  freedom  equal  to  that  of  the 

1  What  unconscious  irony  there  is  in  the  frequent  boast  of  men  who  insist 
upon  the  inequality  of  the  sexes,  "We  hold  women  to  be  our  superiors." 
What  a  cheap  and  tawdry  homage  is  thisl  "You  are  a  goddess!"  Tagore 
makes  Kumo's  husband  say,  but  she  replies:  "No,  no,  no!  I  am  not  going 
to  be  a  goddess  any  longer  ...  I  am  just  an  ordinary  woman."  The  Hungry 
Stones  (New  York,  1916),  p.  169. 


THE  FAMILY  219 

husband  in  the  disposition  of  his  own  earnings  or  income. 
But  beyond  this  will  come  partnership  between  husband  and 
wife  as  equals  in  stewardship  of  the  entire  family  income. 
The  constant  problem  will  be  how  to  do  the  most  good  with 
what  we  have,  and  not  seldom  there  will  be  the  added  problem 
of  how  we  shall  increase  this  our  power  to  do  good — that  is, 
the  wife  will  not  be  an  outsider  to  any  of  her  husband's  business 
concerns.  What  this  implies  in  the  training  of  girls  and  young 
women  is  evident.  It  will  make  for  a  sturdier  domestic  character 
in  women — and  in  men,  too.  And — here  is  our  present  con- 
cern— it  will  introduce  the  children,  both  boys  and  girls,  to  the 
democratic  spirit  in  actual  operation,  and  it  will  furnish  a  stand- 
ard whereby  they  will  be  able  to  detect  the  various  tyrannies 
that  creep,  under  other  titles,  through  modern  society. 

Finally,  the  domestication  of  property  will  include  the  gradual 
economic  enfranchisement  of  each  child.  That  is,  he  will  be 
given  control  of  property,  but  held  to  social  responsibilities. 
By  "social  responsibilities"  is  meant  not  only  one's  share  of 
domestic  labor,  but  also  one's  share  in  studying  (which  should 
have  economic  recognition  as  productive  labor),  and  one's  share 
in  social  enterprises  in  church  and  community.  The  whole 
should  be  treated  from  the  beginning  of  the  child's  experience 
of  money,  not  as  private  gain  from  being  good,  but  as  participa- 
tion in  the  family's  enterprise,  and  thereby  as  participation 
in  the  life  of  the  community.  In  short.  In  the  family  the  child's 
experience  of  property  can  and  should  be  an  experience  of  some- 
thing that  binds  men  together,  not  of  something  that  keeps  them 
apart. 

The  interest  of  religion  in  the  economic  status  of  the 
family.  What  has  just  been  said  assumes  the  existence  of 
what  may  be  called  well-to-do  living  conditions  such  as: 

Housing  that  is  not  only  sanitary,  but  also  adequate,  in  space 
and  in  furnishings,  for  happy  group  life,  and  for  distributed 
home  duties. 

Culture  material,  such  as  books  and  music  and  pictures. 

Opportunity  for  each  child  to  have  schooling  as  far  as  his 
abilities  and  his  Interests  can  carry  him. 


220  THE  FAMILY 

Sufficient  leisure  on  the  part  of  parents  to  enable  them  to 
spend  considerable  time  in  the  company  of  their  children. 

Sufficient  freedom  from  fatiguing  labor  to  make  it  possible 
for  parents  to  play  with  their  children. 

Sufficient  income  to  enable  the  family  to  take  part  in  com- 
munity affairs,  such  as  religious,  philanthropic,  recreational, 
cultural,  and  civic  enterprises. 

Every  one  of  these  conditions  is  important  for  the  religious 
education  of  children  in  the  family.  Yet  families  whose  place 
in  the  economic  scale  is  below  that  of  the  "middle  class"  are 
ipso  facto  excluded  from  one  or  more  of  these  conditions,  in 
multitudes  of  cases  from  all  of  them. 

That  many  beautiful  characters  bloom  out  of  domestic  dep- 
rivation; that  suffering  itself  sometimes  brings  the  sufferers 
close  to  one  another;  that  much  improvement  of  home  training 
is  possible  even  under  the  conditions  that  prevail  below  the 
"middle  class  family" — all  this  is  true  and  important.  But  it 
is  not  an  appreciable  offset  to  the  economic  depression  that  is 
upon  multitudes  of  families,  upon  them  not  merely  as  an 
occasional  emergency,  but  upon  them  permanently  as  the  un- 
escapable  grip  of  an  economic  fate.  Our  glorification  of  the 
higher  life — the  life  of  persons  united  with  one  another  by 
good  will — is  ignorant  mockery  if  we  do  not  see  that  depriva- 
tion of  nutrition,  of  the  company  of  parents,  of  the  physical 
things  whereby  knowledge  and  beauty  and  good  will  are  com- 
municated from  man  to  man,  is  deprivation  of  opportunity  to 
be  a  person,  deprivation  of  opportunity  to  form  a  good  will. 

Therefore  the  cause  of  social  education  in  the  family  is  all 
one  with  the  demand  for  improving  the  economic  status  of  the 
family  as  such.  Every  Christian  church  and  every  Christian 
family  may  be  expected  to  identify  themselves,  as  a  matter  that 
involves  their  own  life  or  death,  with  such  movements  as  these : 

To  abolish  child  labor; 

To  shorten  the  hours  of  labor  for  men  and  for  women; 
To  improve  the  sanitary  and  moral  conditions  of  labor; 
To  increase  the  income  of  most  families; 


THE  FAMILY  221 

To  forestall  unemployment,  and  to  provide  for  accident,  sickness, 
and  old  age; 

To  improve  housing  conditions; 

To  provide  playgrounds,  wholesome  amusements,  and  cultural 
opportunities  for  every  community; 

To  remove  the  saloon,  the  haunts  of  vice,  and  degrading  amuse- 
ments; 

To  keep  the  organs  of  the  commimity  life — local  and  other  govern- 
mental officials — responsive  to  the  needs  and  views  of  the  masses; 

To  improve  the  human  stock  by  adequate  supervision  of  health, 
by  preventing  the  propagation  of  obviously  unfit  strains,  and  by 
inducing  wiser  mating; 

To  provide  a  diversified  education  that,  keeping  close  to  the 
people,  shall  be  adapted  on  the  one  hand  to  their  industrial 
needs,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  bringing  out  and  developing 
to  the  full  whatever  special  talent  individuals  may  possess. 

There  are  various  ways  of  putting  on  the  harness  of  a  cause 
like  this.  Three  of  these  ways  that  have  a  particularly  close 
relation  to  religious  education  may  be  mentioned :  (a)  Religious 
education  in  the  Sunday  school  may  well  include  participation  in 
these  movements  at  the  points  where  they  most  obviously  touch 
child  life,  (b)  The  family  can  reinforce  the  Sunday  school  at 
these  points,  feeding  during  the  week  the  interests  that  are 
aroused  on  Sunday,  or  even  anticipating  the  Sunday  school  by 
taking  social  problems  to  it.  (c)  Most  communities  contain 
families  that  are  depressed  by  the  conditions  that  have  just  been 
analyzed.  Here  pastoral  visitation  may  well  include  an  in- 
quiry into  the  child  life  of  the  community,  and  groups  of  adults 
may  well  undertake  community  surveys,  and  then  adopt  such 
community  programs  as  the  conditions  seem  to  require. 

The  problem  of  family  worship.  For  some  years  there 
have  been  complaints  that  family  religion  is  declining.  The 
old  customs  of  family  prayer,  catechizing,  and  direct,  personal 
religious  appeal  from  parent  to  child  have  largely  disappeared. 
The  reasons  for  this  disappearance  are  found  partly  in  industrial 
and  other  conditions  of  modern  society  that  separate  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  for  many  hours  of  the  day,  and  partly  in  sheer 
parental  neglect.     The  remedy  that  is  most  often  attempted  is 


222  THE  FAMILY 

mutual  Incitement  of  ministers  by  one  another  to  arouse  parents 
to  re-establish  "the  family  altar."  In  spite  of  untoward  con- 
ditions, it  is  said,  time  can  be  found  for  devotions,  and  if  neces- 
sary some  sacrifice  of  other  interests  should  be  made  in  order 
that  children  may  grow  up  in  the  knowledge  and  the  practice  of 
religion. 

That  agitation  of  this  kind  has  had  little  practical  effect 
would  probably  be  admitted  by  all.  The  so-called  seculariza- 
tion of  the  family — even  of  church  families — goes  on  apace 
even  though  we  continually  declare  that  the  issue  is  a  vital  one 
for  our  religion.  Is  it  not  possible  that  some  elements  of  the 
problem  have  been  left  out  of  the  account?  For  example,  has 
not  the  accusation  of  parental  neglect  covered,  in  addition  to 
infirmity  of  purpose,  a  certain  bewilderment  for  which  parents 
are  not  responsible  ?  Two  generations  back  there  was  relatively 
little  question  as  to  the  sort  of  religious  ideas  that  should  be 
presented  to  children.  Almost  any  part  of  the  Bible  might  be 
read  at  family  worship,  for  it  was  all  alike  the  word  of  God. 
No  caution  was  necessary  as  to  the  impression  made  upon  chil- 
dren by  a  biblical  passage,  for  a  particular  interpretation,  im- 
posed by  authority,  was  the  sovereign  antidote  for  all  errors. 
How  to  pray  was  clear,  for  the  outline  of  the  dogmatic  system 
needed  only  to  be  rephrased  in  order  to  appear  as  worship. 
Catechizing  was  the  simple  process  of  drilling  certain  finished 
ideas  or  verbal  formulas  into  the  memory.  Even  personal  relig- 
ious appeal  could  follow  an  easy  and  uniform  tradition  as  to  the 
lost  estate  of  man  and  the  conditions  of  salvation. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  neither  the  content  nor 
the  method  of  such  family  religion  can  be  restored.  The  duty 
that  is  before  us  is  not  restoration,  but  revision  and  reconstruc- 
tion from  the  foundation  upward.  Parents  are  bewildered  be- 
cause they  do  not  see  what  sort  of  reasonable  religious  life  can 
be  shared  in  any  vital  way  by  parents  and  children.  The  preach- 
ing of  religion  as  life  in  distinction  from  dogma,  and  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  social  content  of  the  gospel,  have  not  made 
sufficiently  clear  as  yet  what  these  things  imply  with  respect 
to  the  domestic  circle. 


THE  FAMILY  223 

Let  us  come  at  once  to  the  core  of  the  matter.  The  recon- 
struction of  fireside  religion  will  require  the  formation  within 
the  family  of  common  social  purposes  so  deep  that  they  reach 
the  level  of  worship.  The  principle  that  underlies  the  discussion, 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  of  the  church  as  an  organization  of  worship 
applies  to  the  family  also.  Not  by  saying:  "Lord,  Lord"  shall 
we  introduce  children  to  Christ,  but  rather  by  giving  them 
a  share  in  Chris tly  enterprises,  and  then  letting  the  motive 
thereof  come  to  full  consciousness  as  fellowship  with  Jesus  and 
with  the  Father.  Here  will  be  found  a  guide  for  the  selection  of 
biblical  passages  that  are  really  appropriate  for  family  worship, 
passages  that  will  be  luminous  to  children  as  well  as  to  adults. 
Here,  too,  will  be  found  a  language  for  prayer  that  parents  and 
children  can  use  in  the  same  sense.  The  common  joys  of  the 
family  will  utter  themselves  in  gratitude,  and  so  will  the  joys 
of  others  with  whom  the  members  of  the  family  feel  their  unity. 
Conjoint  confession  of  sin  will  have  meaning  because  the  con- 
trasts of  life  will  be  revealed  in  the  enterprise  of  social  living. 
From  the  same  vital  source  will  spring  the  inextinguishable  social 
aspiration  that  is  the  heart  of  intercession,  namely,  the  identi- 
fication of  our  claim  upon  life  itself  with  the  claim  of  others. 
Children  will  realize  the  presence  of  God,  just  as  their  parents 
will  do,  in  the  **love  that  will  not  let  us  go,"  the  love  that  is 
at  once  command,  and  condemnation,  and  reconciliation,  and 
the  power  of  a  higher  life. 

Education  for  married  life  and  for  parenthood.  The  sort 
of  sex-consciousness  that  refuses  to  face  the  conditions  essential 
to  the  rational — that  is,  socially  foresighted — control  of  one  of 
the  primal  factors  in  social  weal  or  woe  is  an  immodest  "mod- 
esty." The  essence  of  the  immodesty  lies  in  making  self  promi- 
nent in  the  thought  of  sex.  Once  we  take  the  social  point  of 
view  with  respect  to  it,  the  whole  perspective  changes.  Frank- 
ness then  becomes  natural  and  wholesome  wherever  discussion  of 
the  physiological  and  the  ethical  laws  involved  in  the  sexual  life 
can  contribute  anything  to  a  better  society.  Specific  prepara- 
tion for  marriage  and  for  parenthood  then  becomes  a  funda- 
mental interest  of  religious  education.     In  the  divorce  evil  we 


224  THE  FAMILY 

are  reaping  tares  that  were  sown  while  Christian  education  was 
asleep  to  its  social  calling.  While  it  distributed  among  the 
youth  maxims  of  private  goodness  and  of  individualistic  salva- 
tion, the  conditions  of  modern  life  were  loosing  the  family  from 
its  old  moorings,  but  providing  it  with  no  chart  or  compass  for 
its  voyage.  The  prevalence  of  divorce,  moreover,  is  only 
an  acute  symptom  of  a  general  failure  to  reorganize  the  family 
upon  a  higher  social  plane  when  the  old,  semi-patriarchal  basis 
began  its  inevitable  crumbling.^  The  churches  have  before 
them  the  task  of  transforming  life  in  church  families  in  accor- 
dance with  the  social  principles  of  the  gospel.  This  implies 
far  more  than  fresh  legislation  on  marriage  and  divorce,  far  more 
than  palliation  of  strains  that  arise  in  a  family  that  lacks  a 
clear,  outgoing  social  purpose;  it  implies  nothing  less  than  in- 
structing and  training  children  specifically  for  marriage  and 
parenthood  as  the  first  and  foremost  sphere  for  the  deliberate 
organization  and  control  of  society  as  a  democracy  of  God. 

Not  only  is  sex-instruction  necessary  as  a  part  of  religious 
education,  but  the  level  of  this  instruction  must  be  made  utterly 
social.  The  avoidance  of  harm  to  oneself  must  be  simply  a 
phase  of  a  positive  purpose  of  good  for  others.  All  the  "  Thou 
shalt  nots,"  which  have  been  presented  hitherto  as  laws  of 
one's  own  individual  perfection  or  righteousness,  are  to  be  trans- 
formed into  parts  of  an  ambition  to  marry,  to  contribute  to  the 
happiness  of  a  spouse,  to  have  healthy,  happy  children,  and 
through  them  to  contribute  to  the  larger  society.  Here  is  the 
point  of  view  that  should  prevail  with  respect  to  prostitution. 
A  purpose  to  keep  oneself  uncontaminated  is  not  enough. 
There  is  needed  the  truly  Christian  identification  of  one's  own 
interests  with  those  of  others,  with  the  interests  of  every  har- 
lot and  of  every  girl  who  may  yet  be  tempted,  of  every  male 
victim  and  of  every  boy  who  is  in  danger. 

*  It  would  be  interesting  if  one  could  arrange  in  parallel  columns  the  resolu- 
tions of  ecclesiastical  assemblies  with  regard  to  marriage  and  divorce,  and  the 
sermons  and  Sunday-school  instruction  upon  the  same  subject  within  the  same 
comxaunions.  It  would  be  foimd,  I  surmise,  that  as  yet  the  churches  have 
scarcely  begim  to  use  the  power  that  they  possess  for  preventing  the  evils  that 
they  urge  the  state  to  rectify  by  legislation. 


THE  FAMILY  225 

Thus  It  IS  that  problems  of  personal  purity  open  out  into  a 
wide  social  perspective.  They  open  out  toward  the  family, 
and  toward  all  the  economic  conditions  that  depress  its  life; 
they  open  out  toward  the  causes  that  unduly  postpone  marriage; 
to  those  that  keep  white  slavery  going — both  the  social  and 
economic  causes  that  add  to  the  force  of  instinct,  and  the  polit- 
ical causes  that  give  power  to  the  organization  of  vice.  The 
question  is  truly  as  wide  as  one's  outlook  for  the  race.  The 
question  of  the  eugenic  regulation  of  mating  is,  with  all  the  rest, 
a  part  of  the  problem  of  a  possible  democracy  of  God.  In  short, 
religious  education  must  deal  with  the  whole  sexual  life  as  a 
sphere  for  deliberate,  constructive,  social  purpose.  It  must 
instruct  parents  as  to  their  part  in  unfolding  these  high  and  holy 
things  to  their  children.  It  must  support  the  state  and  other 
agencies  in  every  enlightened  effort  to  spread  knowledge  and 
social  standards.  It  must  itself  instruct,  inspire,  and  train 
the  young  with  marriage  and  parenthood  frankly  in  view,  and 
it  must  be  ready  to  assist  inexperienced  parents  with  the  best 
knowledge  that  is  anywhere  available. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

Popular  education  is  the  central  function  of  a  churchp 

If  the  church  were  simply  a  purveyor  of  spiritual  goods,  a  sort 
of  "general  store"  of  the  soul,  its  educational  work  would  not 
necessarily  involve  much  more  than  the  training  of  the  ministry. 
But  if  the  church  is  an  agency  for  developing  in  the  people  a 
certain  sort  of  self-control,  especially  one  that  is  difficult  of 
achievement,  then  popular  education  becomes  a  fundamental 
ecclesiastical  necessity.  It  is  a  necessity  because  of  the  inerad- 
icable difference  between  the  plasticity  of  childhood  and  the 
relative  fixity  of  maturity.  True,  maturity  is  only  relatively 
rigid;  modifications  of  character  occur  at  any  age,  and  conver- 
sions that  reverse  the  whole  current  of  life  are  scattered  through 
the  history  of  the  church.  Our  religion  glories,  and  should 
glory,  in  its  power  to  rescue  shipwrecked  characters.  But  the 
supreme  test  of  its  power  lies  in  the  prevention  of  wrecks.  To 
put  the  matter  in  terms  of  construction  rather  than  in  terms  of 
disaster,  the  predominant  function  of  the  church  is  to  get 
Christian  motives  into  control  of  the  growing  powers  of  chil- 
dren and  youth.  This  function  predominates  in  religion  pre- 
cisely as  sanitation  and  hygiene  predominate  in  matters  of 
public  health.  More  than  this,  the  educational  function  must 
predominate  in  Christianity  because  of  what  Christianity  is. 
For: 

(1)  The  church  can  maintain  the  spirit  of  prophecy  within 
itself  only  by  educating  the  people.  The  priestly  function  of 
di.spensing  benefits  can  be  handed  on  from  priest  to  priest  with- 
out intervention  of  the  people,  but  prophetic  insight  into  life's 
problems,   and  prophetic  zeal  for  truly  divine  justice  come 

226 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  227 

"up  from  the  burning  core  below,"  up  from  the  "common" 
people,  not  down  from  any  privileged  class.  If  the  ministry 
desires  to  avoid  stagnation,  let  it  keep  close  to  the  people; 
yes,  let  it  train  the  people  to  make  great  demands  upon  the 
church.  If  the  church  is  not  to  be  a  belated  follower  of  the  social 
conscience,  a  sort  of  "me  too"  among  philanthropic  societies 
and  organizations  for  reform;  if  the  church  is  to  be  a  perpetual 
inspiration  to  the  human  longing  for  a  humane  life,  a  perpetual 
organ  for  the  manifestation  of  the  God  of  love — if  this  is  to  con- 
stitute the  very  life  of  the  church,  then  it  must  continuously 
stimulate  the  fresh  spirits  of  the  young  to  make  greater  and 
greater  demands  upon  life.  Not  to  keep  human  vitality  in 
prearranged  grooves,  but  to  enlarge  its  desires,  widen  its  out- 
look, make  it  more  critical  of  things  as  they  are,  and  more  ready 
to  pay  the  cost  of  social  reconstruction — this  is  religious  educa- 
tion upon  the  prophetic  level.  It  involves  of  necessity  ever- 
renewed  criticism  of  the  church  and  of  its  ministry  from  the 
standpoint  of  human  need,  and  ever-recurring  necessity  for 
inner  reconstruction  of  ecclesiastical  life  and  purpose.  This 
is  what  it  means  to  maintain  the  spirit  of  prophecy.  This 
spirit  is  the  divine  love-impulse  circulating  upward  from  the 
needs  of  the  people,  and  pouring  itself  wherever  it  can  into  the 
hearts  of  those  who  can  help.^ 

(2)  Education  of  the  people  is  an  indispensable  means  for  cor- 
recting the  faults  of  the  church.  Errors  of  learning,  defects  in 
standards,  and  inefficiencies  in  methods,  all  require  as  their  cor- 
rective one  or  another  sort  of  democratic  judgment.  Errors 
in  learning  are  corrected  by  the  methods  of  science,  which  is 
the  democracy  of  the  intellect.  Scientific  method  spreads  be- 
fore the  whole  world  every  esoteric  doctrine.  Here  hoary  pre- 
rogative has  no  standing;  here  every  one  must  become  as  a 
little  child  who  gazes  unabashed  upon  anything  whatever,  and 

'  Id  Is  Christianity  Practicable?  (New  York.  1916).  William  Adams  Brown 
has  eiven  striking  evidence  of  this  spiritual  law  of  the  chtirch's  life.  The 
powerlessness  of  the  churches  everywhere  to  avert  the  present  world  calamity, 
and  the  dominance  of  church  consciousness  by  nationalistic  assumptions  in 
all  the  warring  countries,  point  back  to  failure  to  educate  the  commonalty 
In  the  world  outlook  that  is  inherent  in  the  Christian  principle  of  brotherhood. 


228  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

tells  without  reserve  what  he  has  seen.  The  emancipation  of 
the  church  from  its  chief  ancient  errors  with  respect  to  the 
Scriptures,  for  example,  came  about,  not  by  exercising  any  self- 
sufficient  ecclesiastical  prerogative,  but  by  opening  ecclesiastical 
doors  to  democratic  scientific  methods  that  were  already  preva- 
lent outside. 

This  represents  a  general  law.  The  church  can  save  itself 
only  by  the  help  of  those  to  whom  it  is  sent;  it  has  a  vital  in- 
terest in  stimulating  them  to  the  largest  use  of  their  native  ca- 
pacities. Even  in  respect  to  standards  of  conduct  ecclesiastical 
self-sufficiency  is  self-delusion.  That  the  church's  officially  pro- 
claimed standards  can  fall  behind  those  of  church  members  and 
of  outsiders  we  all  know  right  well.  It  is  necessary  time  and 
again  to  convert  the  church  as  one  step  in  a  social  reform. 
Nor  is  this  anomalous;  it  represents  a  law  of  the  growth  and 
decay  of  institutions.  Self -involution  on  the  part  of  any  insti- 
tution involves  decay  of  its  social  value.  Granted  that  the 
church  is  the  inheritor  of  imperishable  truth;  does  it  follow 
therefrom  that  she  always  understands  and  uses  the  riches  that 
are  under  her  hand  ?  Nothing,  in  fact,  but  the  cry  of  the  people 
for  a  richer  life  can  keep  her  awake  to  the  exliaustlessness  of 
the  treasure  that  she  carries. 

If  this  is  true  of  standards  of  conduct,  how  much  more  true  is 
it  of  methods  of  work.  It  is  a  trite  remark  that  institutional 
procedures  that  arise  in  response  to  a  particular  situation  tend 
to  perpetuate  themselves  regardless  of  changes  of  situation, 
and  therefore  regardless  of  efficiency.  Institutions  tend  to 
measure  their  duty  by  their  own  past  performances.  Hence 
the  necessity  of  popular  judgments,  unhampered  by  habit,  by 
vested  interests,  or  by  pride  of  official  consistency. 

Thus,  on  all  accounts,  the  church  needs  a  policy  of  unreserve 
in  religious  education.  Does  some  one  suggest  that  the  churches 
are  embarrassed  at  the  present  moment  by  popular  criticism? 
Or  that  religious  education  should  therefore  adopt  a  defensive 
policy?  The  reply  is  that  the  danger  to  the  churches  from 
the  prevalent  popular  criticism  arises  from  the  fact  that  it  is 
not  thoroughgoing  enough;  it  demands  too  little  of  us,  not  too 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  229 

much ;  it  tends  to  beget  In  us  a  multitude  of  insignificant  accom- 
modations Instead  of  a  more  fundamental,  more  creative,  pur- 
pose. The  social  deficlences  of  the  religious  education  of  the 
past  are  thus  returning  upon  our  own  heads  through  the  pal- 
try demands  that  the  people  make  upon  the  church. 

(3)  Through  popular  education  the  church  makes  its  chief  con- 
tribution to  the  community  life.  What  has  just  been  said  con- 
cerns the  maintenance  and  the  Improvement  of  the  church  Itself 
as  an  organ  of  divine  inspiration.  The  conclusion  that  we  have 
reached  may  be  summarily  stated  as  follows:  As  it  Is  the  char- 
acter of  God  to  give  himself  forth  into  human  life,  and  as  self- 
forgetting  service  is  the  great  law  of  individual  vitality,  so  ecclesi- 
astical institutions  can  escape  instltutlonali^w  only  through  the 
influence  of  an  awakened  commonalty.  The  church  must 
educate  the  people,  then,  for  the  sake  of  its  own  perpetuity  and 
self-  i  mpro  vement . 

The  power  that  the  church  should  desire  to  have  is  power 
to  transform  the  common  life,  and  this  means  the  community. 
Religious  education  must  be  outgoing  as  truly  as  foreign  mis- 
sions. "  Come  unto  me,"  said  Jesus,  but  when  men  had  come 
to  him  he  said  to  them  "  Go."  This  Is  the  spirit  of  enlightened 
Christian  education.  It  seeks  to  lay  upon  pupils  a  mission. 
It  does.  Indeed,  say:  "Come  Into  the  church  fellowship,"  but 
it  adds:  "Let  us  go."  There  is  no  denying,  however,  that  the 
"Come"  has  been  far  more  In  evidence  than  the  "Go."  Re- 
ligious education  has  had  too  prominently  In  mind  membership 
in  the  church,  and  not  prominently  enough  membership  in  the 
community.  Both  the  church  and  the  community  have  suf- 
fered as  a  consequence. 

But  an  awakening  is  upon  us.  As  never  before,  proclama- 
tions of  the  Christian  religion  as  social  reconstruction  issue 
from  pulpits  and  from  ecclesiastical  assemblies.  But  these 
proclamations  are  addressed  for  the  most  part  to  mature  men 
and  women  whose  social  habits  are  already  formed,  and  whose 
occupations  and  stations  in  life  have  already  enmeshed  them  in 
social  unrighteousness.  The  most  that  can  be  expected  directly 
from  these  persons  Is  some  amelioration  of  bad  conditions. 


230      .  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

To  their  children  will  be  left  the  more  basal  parts  of  social  re- 
construction. Just  here  is  where  the  church  will  make  its  chief 
contribution  to  the  common  life — by  providing  a  constant  and 
increasing  supply  of  young  people  who  have  social  outlook  and 
purpose  before  they  cast  their  first  vote,  and  before  they  enter 
upon  their  life-occupations.^ 

The  idea  of  a  department  of  education  in  the  local  religious 
society.  The  clergy  of  to-day,  if  we  may  judge  by  conditions 
that  are  prevalent  in  the  churches,  commonly  look  upon  educa- 
tion as  an  adjunct  of  the  church,  an  appendix  of  the  ministry, 
which  requires  only  such  strength  and  such  means  as  may  be 
left  over  after  other  things  are  attended  to.  If  this  looks  like 
a  harsh  judgment,  test  it  by  instituting  a  survey  of  the  twenty 
churches  nearest  to  you,  a  survey  that  will  compare  expendi- 
ture for  religious  education  with  expenditure  for  other  things 
in  three  respects:  (a)  Hours  per  week  given  to  religious  educa- 
tion by  salaried  oJEcials  as  compared  with  hours  given  to  other 
interests;  (6)  A  similar  comparison  of  annual  fiscal  expenditure, 
salaries  included;  (c)  A  comparison  of  the  space  used  for  re- 
ligious education  with  that  used  for  other  purposes,  a  compari- 
son that  shall  include  both  amount  of  room  and  degree  of  adap- 
tation. 

It  would  doubtless  be  unjust  to  charge  any  one  with  stupidity 
in  this  matter.  Ministers,  like  the  rest  of  us,  are  made  what 
they  are  by  social  conditions.  It  is  impossible,  too,  not  to 
sympathize  with  pastors  upon  whom  there  falls  such  a  multi- 
plicity of  burdens  that  no  strength  is  left  for  the  improvement  of 
parish  education.    Yet  it  must  be  said  that  this  heaping  of 

1  From  the  sporadic  attempts  at  whirlwind  reforms  that  one  witnesses  here 
and  there,  one  might  suppose:  (1)  That  social  wrongs  lilse  the  saloon,  white 
slavery,  lonemployment,  seven-day  labor,  child  labor,  poverty,  and  war,  are 
discontinuous  parts  of  the  social  complex,  each  of  which  might  be  cleaned 
up  by  itself  once  and  for  all.  It  is  nob  so.  Social  wrongs  not  only  intertwine, 
they  are  continuous  with  one  another,  like  teeth,  sesophagus,  and  stomach. 
,  (2)  That,  after  certain  reforms  are  accomplished,  the  church  will  be  able  to 
devote  itself  wholly  to  its  more  particular  work.  Again,  it  is  not  so.  The 
particular  work  of  the  church  is  the  radical  transformation  of  society.  The 
fundamental  difference  between  the  church  and  other  institutions  is  the 
radical  character  of  its  social  principle,  a  principle  within  which  is  included 
Christianity  8  limitless  hope  for  each  individual. 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  231 

miscellaneous  duties  upon  one  another  occurs  because  of  the 
lack  of  an  adequate  organizing  principle  for  the  pastoral  office. 
The  question  that  needs  to  be  answered  is  not,  "How  can  I 
possibly  do  more  things?"  but  "What  is  my  perspective? 
Which  things  are  large,  and  which  ones  small  ?  What  is  funda- 
mental, and  what  accessory?  Which  sort  of  labor  brings  the 
largest  returns  ?  " 

In  view  of  present  insight  into  the  church's  duty  to  the  com- 
munity, and  in  view  of  the  agitation  for  religious  education 
that  has  been  going  on  for  years,  one  might  say,  without  un- 
charitableness,  that  the  minister  of  the  future  will  indeed  be 
stupid  if  he  permits  himself  to  be  made  a  pack-horse,  or  an  all- 
'round  handy  man,  when  he  is  called  of  God  to  be  a  prophet. 
The  spirit  of  prophecy,  when  it  comes  among  us,  will  doubtless 
manifest  itself  in  many  ways,  but  one  of  them  will  surely  be  the 
organization  of  genuine  departments  of  religious  education. 

As  a  rule,  departments  of  religious  education  do  not  yet  exist 
in  our  churches.  Instead,  we  have  a  heap  of  unrelated  organiza- 
tions and  activities — a  Sunday  school,  a  young  people's  society, 
a  junior  society,  clubs  of  boys  and  of  girls,  mission-study  classes, 
week-day  religious  instruction,  classes  of  catechumens,  sermons 
to  children,  and,  apart  from  them  all,  the  isolated  efforts  of 
church  members  at  religious  education  in  the  home.  The  re- 
sults are: 

(a)  Overlapping  and  duplication,  as  in  Bible  study  or  study  of 
missions. 

(6)  Gaps,  such  as:  Lack  of  social  or  other  activities  appropriate 
to  a  particular  age,  or  to  one  sex  at  a  particular  age;  lack  of  regular 
educational  procedures  for  inducting  the  young  into  full  member- 
ship in  the  church;  lack  of  missionary  training  for  one  or  another 
group;  lack  of  connection  between  all  these  activities  and  the 
ordinary  functions  of  laymen  in  the  local  society.  At  present  the 
fact  that  one  has  been  trained  in  a  Sunday  school  rarely  guarantees 
that  he  is  fit  for  skilful  churchmanship. 

(c)  Indefiniteness  of  purpose,  and  consequently  lack  of  stand- 
ards. Because  the  young  people's  society  doesn't  quite  know 
what  place  belongs  to  it  in  an  educational  scheme,  the  upper  age 


232  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

limit  is  often  left  undefined,  so  that  men  and  women  of  almost 
any  age  are  found  among  the  "young"  people.  Moreover,  many 
a  young  people's  society,  instead  of  training  its  members  in  church- 
manship,  has  become  a  competitor  of  the  chiu'ch.  Similarly, 
clubs  of  various  sorts  pursue  their  way,  according  to  chance  con- 
ditions or  chance  leadership,  with  little  or  no  vital  connection 
with  the  church  or  with  any  distinctly  religious  purpose.  The 
Sunday  school,  in  turn,  not  seldom  assumes  that  it  is  efficient  sim- 
ply because  the  school  machinery  hums.  That  is,  it  compares 
itself  with  itself  instead  of  judging  itself  by  the  ascertained  prog- 
ress of  its  pupils  toward  some  defined  goal.  The  lack  of  a  defined 
goal  subjects  the  school,  further,  to  the  whims  of  individuals. 
For  the  same  reason  there  is  much  jumping  at  fads,  or  standing 
**pat"  on  already  discredited  methods. 

(d)  In  a  word,  there  is  no  guarantee  that  any  person  will  re- 
ceive genuine,  continuous  pastoral  care  through  his  childhood 
and  youth. 


The  gaps  and  the  overlappings  in  a  local  society,  or  in  a 
denominational  programme,  can  be  graphically  presented  by 
making  a  table  like  that  shown  on  the  opposite  page. 

The  respective  provisions  for  the  two  sexes  may  be  made 
still  more  graphic  by  using  black  ink  for  one,  and  red  ink  for 
the  other.  The  table  here  given  is  only  a  suggestion.  In  many 
churches  additional  items  would  have  to  be  inserted,  and  in 
some  cases  a  different  division  would  be  advisable.  Thus, 
church  doctrine  might  be  separated  from  church  usages,  or 
usages  and  worship  might  be  combined.  If  the  conditions  in 
any  church  were  adequately  presented  in  the  present  table,  the 
following  queries  would  arise:  Why  duplicate  Bible  instruc- 
tion for  just  these  ages;  in  fact,  why  duplicate  at  all?  Does 
instruction  in  church  doctrine  and  usages  begin  early  enough 
and  continue  long  enough?  Does  mission  study  begin  early 
enough,  and  why  is  there  so  much  more  for  women  than  for 
men?  Why  does  tr^ning  in  worship  stop  while  the  capacity 
for  worship  is  little  more  than  infantile?  Why  is  there  train- 
ing in  giving  for  women  and  not  for  men,  and  why  doesn't  this 
training  run  all  the  way  through  the  Sunday  school  ?    Why  do 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 


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234  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

men  receive  instruction  and  training  in  social  righteousness 
while  women  do  not,  and  why  are  the  socially  important  years 
of  early  and  middle  adolescence  left  blank?  In  general,  why 
is  middle  adolescence  less  richly  provided  for  than  other  ages? 
Finally,  is  this  church  promoting  and  supervising  home  instruc- 
tion and  training? 

A  department  of  religious  education,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  provide  all-'round  pastoral  care  for  children.  For,  in 
contrast  to  the  present  jumble  of  agencies,  and  the  hit-or-miss 
methods  that  are  so  common,  it  would  have  the  following 
features: 

(a)  It  would  include  as  pupils  all  the  children  and  youth  over 
whom  the  church  has  oversight. 

(6)  It  would  include,  and  unify,  everything  done  by  the  church 
with  these  pupils.  Labor  would  be  economized  by  omitting  use- 
less activities  and  duplications,  and  by  increased  specialization 
within  the  activities  that  remain.  Every  class,  club,  or  society 
that  might  be  needed  would  then  become  a  real  organ  of  the  cen- 
tral purpose. 

(c)  Such  a  department  would  have  for  the  whole  a  definite 
plan,  out  of  which,  in  connection  with  accumulating  experience, 
would  grow  definite  standards  and  tests  of  the  various  organs  and 
procedures.  Of  the  nature  of  standards  and  tests  more  will  be 
said  presently. 

(d)  Because  of  this  definiteness  of  purpose,  of  functions,  of 
standards,  and  of  tests,  specialized  training  would  be  provided 
for  the  workers,  and  they  would  be  appointed,  transferred,  pro- 
moted, and  relieved,  on  impersonal,  educational  grounds,  not,  as 
happens  so  often  at  present,  for  personal  considerations,  some- 
times even  irrelevant  ones.^ 

(e)  Such  a  unified  whole  would  have  unified  supervision  that 
reaches  to  every  part  and  to  every  activity.    Somebody  must 

1  The  smart  that  so  many  Sunday  school  teachers  and  oflBcers  now  feel 
when  they  cannot  have  their  own  way  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the  fact  that 
irresponsibility  has  become  a  presumption  of  one's  office.  When  there  is 
neither  standard,  nor  test,  nor  supervision  for  my  work,  how  can  I  help  being 
hurt  when  anybody  else  assumes  authority  over  me?  The  way  out  of  this 
medley  of  arbitrary  prerogatives,  with  the  touchiness  that  results,  is  not 
increase  of  arbitrary  power,  or  more  decisive  use  of  it,  as  by  a  superintendent, 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  235 

know  just  what  is  happening,  and  must  be  competent  and  ready- 
to  assist  any  and  every  worker  to  do  his  best. 

Wherein  supervision  consists.  The  proposal  to  establish 
thorough  supervision  in  religious  education,  and  to  appoint, 
transfer,  promote,  and  relieve  teachers  and  officers  solely  on 
the  ground  of  efficiency  will  seem  to  many  persons  to  involve 
extreme  difficulty.  For  supervision  is  popularly  supposed  to 
imply  one  or  more  of  these  disagreeable  things:  Secret  spy- 
ing upon  my  work;  concocting  plans  with  respect  to  me  behind 
my  back;  subjecting  mj^self  to  a  boss  who  may  not  understand 
my  problems,  or  difficulties,  or  limitations;  encountering  fault- 
finding, and  possibly  sarcasm,  when  I  have  done  the  best  I 
know  how.  If  such  fears  were  well  founded,  supervision  would 
be  essentially  anarchy — the  anarchy  that  lurks  in  every  autoc- 
racy. Teachers  are  justified  in  being  sensitive  at  this  point; 
no  foreign  invasion  of  their  work  or  of  their  personal  dignity 
can  be  justified.  But  supervision,  properly  understood,  is  the 
exact  opposite  of  the  wrongs  that  are  feared.     Thus: 

(1)  Siipermsion  is  sharing  the  burdens,  and  the  blame,  that 
might  otherwise  fall  upon  an  isolated  individual.  One  of  the 
worst  vices  of  the  traditional  Sunday  school  is  that  it  isolates 
the  worker  with  his  work.  How  few  teachers  and  officers 
can  say:  "There  is  one  person  who  understands  my  problems 
and  difficulties,  is  ever  ready  to  help  me  wdth  them,  and  if 
things  go  wrong  will  share  with  me  the  responsibility  for  the 
error"!  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  gibes  to  which  Sunday  school 
teachers  have  been  subjected  in  recent  years  have  been  made 
possible,  for  the  most  part,  by  lack  of  supervision.  If  a  pastor 
or  a  director  of  religious  education  were  known  to  be  impli- 
cated in  the  faults  that  seem  worthy  of  castigation,  he  would 

but  the  exaltation  of  impersonal  educational  standards — standards  sufficiently 
technical  to  do  honor  to  those  who  attain  them,  without  dishonoring  those 
who  do  not.  Besides,  when  a  church  as  a  whole  takes  religious  education 
in  a  suflBciently  serious  way,  the  very  largeness  of  the  problem  sobers  those 
who  realize  what  is  happening.  It  is  then  possible  to  appeal  to  the  deeper 
religious  motives  of  the  workers — motives  that  will  make  one  glad  to  have 
the  best  possible  work  done,  and  even,  out  of  loyalty,  to  acquiesce  in  decisions 
the  wisdom  of  which  one  doubts. 


236  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

be  the  more  shining  mark  for  the  darts  of  scorn,  or  at  least  his 
share  in  the  chagrin  would  make  the  teacher's  share  easier  to 
bear.  Simple  fairness  requires  some  stated  provision  whereby 
each  worker  may  talk  over  his  problems  with  some  other  person 
who  will  take  the  trouble  to  understand  them  and  to  assist  in 
solving  them.  This  conception  of  the  matter  puts  upon  the 
supervisor,  on  the  other  hand,  an  obligation  to  co-operate 
understandingly  and  sympathetically  with  each  worker — to 
make  him  succeed  if  this  is  possible.  The  supervisor  is  not  to 
be  a  slave-driver,  or  a  mere  task-setter,  or  a  mere  measurer  and 
appraiser;  he  Is  not  to  be  outside  the  work  at  all,  but  inside  it; 
he  is  to  be  "touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities,"  having 
been  "in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are." 

(2)  Supervision  limits  the  arbitrariness  of  every  worker,  the 
supervisor  himself  included.  Supervision  does  Imply  that  I 
surrender  my  arbitrary  will  in  every  detail  of  my  work,  but  that 
to  which  I  surrender  Is  not  another  arbitrary  will,  but  the  com- 
mon cause.  Moreover,  every  other  worker  does  the  same,  so 
that  we  meet  one  another  upon  a  truly  democratic  basis.  Every 
one  is  to  take  this  humble  position. 

Probably  no  workers  receive  less  supervisory  assistance  than 
Sunday  school  superintendents,  though  in  the  nature  of  their 
work  no  one  needs  it  more.  Their  duties  are  complicated,  to 
begin  with.  Administration,  conduct  of  worship,  selection  and 
supervision  of  teachers — all  these  fall  to  their  lot.  For  lack  of 
supervision  the  best  powers  of  many  a  superintendent  are 
never  called  into  use.  Lack  of  supervision  means  isolation. 
Having  no  one  to  go  to  with  his  problems,  and  no  one  to  show 
him  his  faults  or  how  to  improve,  he  stumbles  along,  forms 
habits  of  stumbling,  becomes  set  in  his  ways,  and  very  likely 
arbitrary.  There  are  many  superintendents  who  think  of 
themselves  as  specialists  in  Sunday  school  work,  whereas  they 
are  merely  mechanized.  Again,  the  many  superintendents  who 
assume  that  they  have  a  sort  of  prescriptive  right  to  their  office, 
those  who  are  ready  to  make  a  row  if  they  are  deposed,  most 
of  the  martinets  and  the  autocrats,  are  victims  of  the  injustice 
that  is  inherent  in  every  unsupervised  school.     They  have  been 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  237 

made  what  they  are  by  the  situation  in  which  the  votes  of  others 
have  placed  them.  Gradually,  gently,  irresponsible  superin- 
tendents must  be  made  over  into  responsible  ones,  or  else  dis- 
placed. The  same  principle  applies  to  the  pastor  and  the 
director  of  religious  education. 

The  fundamental  idea  in  supervision  is  intimate  sharing  in 
burden-bearing.  This  implies  that  the  group  of  workers  is  of 
the  deliberative  sort.  Every  one  has  a  right  to  be  heard. 
Every  one  has  the  duty  of  making  available  the  facts  that  only 
he  knows;  every  one's  experience  contains  some  illumination; 
every  one  must  form  judgments  of  his  own  as  a  part  of  his  con- 
tribution to  the  common  enterprise,  and  these  judgments  must 
concern,  in  some  measure,  the  acts  of  the  supervisor  himself. 
He  will  make  a  serious  blunder  if  he  assumes  to  be  a  self- 
sufficient  fountain  of  either  wisdom  or  executive  power.  For 
he  will  almost  certainly  discredit  himself  by  his  obvious  falli- 
bility, and  even  if,  by  personal  attractiveness  or  by  sheer  energy, 
he  gets  himself  accepted  at  his  own  valuation,  the  result  will  be 
a  mechanized  school  which,  lacking  the  unity  and  the  self- 
perpetuating  capacity  of  a  living  organism,  will  fall  to  pieces 
when  his  hand  is  withdrawn.  The  way  of  the  wise  supervisor 
is  that  of  humble  seeking  for  light;  it  is  that  of  openness  of  pur- 
pose, and  great  frankness  with  every  worker;  it  is  that  of  spread- 
ing his  own  policies  and  acts  before  the  staff  of  workers  so  that 
they  may  not  only  be  instructed  but  also  become  his  instructors. 

(3)  Supervision  implies  that  there  is  a  definite  organ  for  main- 
taining the  unity  of  the  school.  The  present  isolation  of  the 
worker  not  only  increases  his  own  burdens,  it  adds  to  the 
burdens  of  others  also.  Take  as  an  example  the  problem  of 
cultivating  reverence  in  pupils.  The  conduct  of  a  pupil  in  the 
common  worship  of  the  school  often  depends  upon  the  attitude 
and  the  habits  of  his  teacher.  The  thoughtless  influence  of 
many  a  tardy,  inattentive,  disorderly  teacher  pulls  against  the 
superintendent's  efforts  to  lead  the  children  into  a  worshipful 
frame  of  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  cases  are  not  lacking  in 
which  a  superintendent's  slam-bang  ways  in  the  assembly  of 
the  school  beget  irreverence  that  the  teacher  cannot  over- 


238  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

come.  Consider,  likewise,  the  burdens  that  teachers  must 
bear  because  of  poor  work  done  in  lower  grades.  The  fact  is 
that  the  parts  of  a  school  are  interdependent,  whether  we  plan 
to  have  them  so  or  not.  But  interdependence  is  not  the  same 
as  unity.  Nor  is  unity  achieved  even  by  having  a  common 
pm*pose  in  all  the  parts  unless  the  community  of  the  purpose  be 
specifically  represented  in  some  official  who  acts  upon  every 
part  from  the  standpoint  of  wholeness.  The  supervisor  is,  in 
fact,  the  organ  whereby  the  school  assures  itself  of  a  system  of 
religious  education. 

(4)  Supervision  develops  standards  of  educational  efficiency 
for  every  office.  The  very  fact  that  a  school  has  a  supervisor 
should  mean  emphasis  upon  results,  or  efficiency,  as  distinguished 
from  going  through  certain  movements.  For  example,  the  office 
of  secretary  will  involve  not  only  filling  in  certain  blank  spaces 
in  record  books,  but  also  such  use  of  the  records  as  helps  to 
educate  the  pupils.  The  secretary  will  be,  in  his  own  way,  an 
educator.  A  long  vista  of  attractive  possibilities  opens  up  for 
this  ordinarily  prosaic  office — a  vista  of  analyses  that  shall 
show  the  strong  and  the  weak  points  in  the  school;  reports  that 
shall  stimulate  pupils,  teachers,  parents,  and  the  church  board; 
exhibits  that  shall  be  a  tonic  for  everybody.  Similarly,  the 
office  of  the  teacher  in  each  grade  will  consist  primarily  in  pro- 
ducing certain  ascertainable  results  in  pupils — not  in  saying 
certain  things,  not  in  "going  over"  certain  pages  in  a  text- 
book. So  it  will  be  through  the  whole  school.  The  superin- 
tendent, as  well  as  his  colleagues,  will  be  answerable  for  pro- 
ducing definable  educational  effects  in  pupils.  Not  "  What  have 
you  done?"  but  "What  have  you  got  done?"  will  be  the 
primary  question  for  each. 

When  each  office  comes  to  be  defined  thus  by  its  educational 
function,  then  and  then  only  the  person  who  holds  the  office 
is  put  into  true  perspective.  We  have  then  the  antidote  for 
the  substitution  of  personal  attractiveness  for  skill;  we  have 
the  corrective  for  both  faddishness  and  traditionalism;  and  we 
undermine  every  claim  to  hold  an  office  as  a  personal  perquisite. 
Here  is  the  beginning  of  the  cure  for  discontinuity  of  work 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  239 

through  changes  of  personnel.  As  long  as  the  present  fogginess 
of  standards  prevails,  we  must  expect  that,  as  workers  come  and 
go,  there  will  be  interruptions  and  disruptions  of  function.  But 
clearly  understood  standards,  administered  by  a  recognized 
supervisor,  will  tend  to  stabilize  the  whole  school,  and  to  pro- 
duce continuity  of  life  at  every  point. 

(5)  Supervision  develops  tests  of  efficiency.  A  standard  is 
some  point  that  we  set  out  to  reach  within  a  given  time;  a  test 
is  any  fact  by  which  we  can  judge  whether  we  have  moved 
toward  this  point,  and  how  far  we  have  moved.  If  the  standard 
is  that  every  teacher  should  be  on  time  every  Sunday  of  the 
year,  the  test  is  the  facts  of  attendance  counted  one  by  one 
each  Sunday.  If  a  standard  for  the  fourth  grade  is  that  each 
pupil  should  by  the  end  of  the  year  know  the  Bible  stories  up 
to  the  David  cycle,  then  the  test  is  some  piece  or  pieces  of  work 
done  by  each  pupil  in  which  he  uses  these  stories. ^  If  a  standard 
of  the  secondary  department  is  that  every  pupil,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, should  be  brought  into  full  or  confirmed  membership 
in  the  church  by  the  age  of  sixteen,  then  the  test  will  include,  in 
addition  to  counting  those  who  are  and  those  who  are  not  in 
this  relation  to  the  church  by  the  age  of  sixteen,  such  a  study 
of  each  remaining  outsider  as  will  reveal  why  he  remains  out- 
side. Only  so  can  we  judge  whether  the  obstacle  was  or  was 
not  removable  by  our  efforts. 

The  distinction  between  standards  and  tests  is  important. 
For  high  standards  do  not  of  themselves  prove  much  as  to  the 
effectiveness  of  the  work  that  is  actually  done.  Many  a  worker, 
in  fact,  deceives  himself  by  measuring  the  quality  of  his  work  by 
the  motives  with  which  it  is  done,  or  by  the  hopes  that  are  en- 
tertained for  it.  There  is  no  end  to  the  possibilities  of  bungling 
on  the  part  of  those  who  mean  well.  Generally  the  standard 
itself  is  somewhat  hazy  until  tests  are  devised,  so  that  standards 

1  This  is  not  the  same  as  saying  that  an  examination  is  necessary,  at  least 
if  "examination"  is  used  in  the  ordinary  sense.  The  formaUstic  examina- 
tion that  still  lingers  in  day  schools  and  colleges  bears  witness,  not  to  thorough- 
ness of  teaching  in  these  institutions,  but  to  a  low  level  of  teaching  methods. 
Here  and  there  a  Simday  school  needs  to  be  warned  against  adopting  in 
religious  teaching  the  defective  methods  that  progressive  educators  are  strug- 
gling to  put  aux  end  to  in  other  schools. 


240  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

and  tests,  though  they  are  distinct,  are  practically  reciprocal. 
The  tabular  view  on  the  oppsite  page  will  suggest  the  rela- 
tions here  involved,  and  also  some  general  notions  of  the  sorts 
of  standard  and  of  test  that  will  be  found  appropriate  in  a 
church  department  of  education. 

Most  of  the  theory  that  underlies  this  table  has  already  been 
stated.  The  proposal  to  utilize  in  administration  all  the  avail- 
able powers  of  pupils  may,  however,  need  a  word  of  explana- 
tion. Let  us  recall,  then,  two  features  of  the  outlook  that  we 
have  already  reached.  The  first  is  that  the  basal  process  in 
the  teaching  of  religion  is  social  experience  on  the  Christian 
plane,  or  common  purposeful  life  on  the  part  of  teacher  and 
pupil.  The  second  is  that  we  are  to  educate  for  democracy. 
These  two  principles  taken  together  imply  that  the  ideal  school 
is  not  the  one  in  which  there  is  an  impervious  governing  class 
placed  over  the  class  of  the  governed,  but  the  one  in  which 
there  is  no  plane  of  separation  at  all  between  the  governors  and 
the  governed.  That  is,  though  diversity  of  function  must 
exist,  so  that  one  person  uses  his  judgment  in  one  sphere,  an- 
other in  another,  children  themselves  at  all  ages  have  real  func- 
tions in  school  management.  Alternatives  are  constantly  to 
be  provided,  and  the  choice  of  pupils  between  such  alternatives 
is  to  be  final. 

By  the  time  pupils  reach  the  secondary  school  age  they  are 
experienced  enough  to  form  a  student  council  made  up  of 
representatives  from  their  various  classes.  Such  a  council,  as 
experience  has  already  shown,  may  well  consider,  and  in  many 
cases  settle,  serious  problems.  When  such  a  body  is  not  a 
make-believe  one,  devised  by  adults  simply  for  getting  pupils 
to  accept  what  has  already  been  decided,  but  a  body  that  is 
seriously  consulted  and  really  used  for  improving  policies  and 
methods,  the  members  of  it  show  surprising  capacity — surprising 
to  any  one  brought  up  under  a  contrary  type  of  education — 
for  appreciating  the  purposes  of  the  school  and  for  contributing 
^  valuable  element  to  the  administration  of  it. 

Relation  of  the  families  of  the  church  to  the  church  school. 
Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  the  department  of  religious  educa- 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 


241 


Standards 

AND 

Tests 

FOR  THE 

Church 
School 


Standards 
AND  Tests 

OF 

Ultimatp: 
Results 


Standards 
AND  Tests 

OF 

Proximate 
Results 


The  Standard:  Progress  of  the  Democracy  of  God, 
Progress  being  Defined  from  time  to  time  by  the 
Right  Settlement  of  Specific  Social  Problems. 

The  Test:  Statistics  of  Social  Conditions,  includ- 
ing the  Church  and  Missions,  our  own  Local  Com- 
munity, and  the  Larger  Society— Nation  and  World. 

The  Standard:  Intelligent  Consecration  of  Every 
Pupil,  according  to  his  Capacity,  to  the  Christian 
Purpose,  which  is  promotion  of  the  Democracy  of 
God. 

The  Test:  Varies  with  the  Age  of  the  Pupil.  With 
Younger  Pupils,  Observation  of  Conduct  by  Parents 
and  Teachers;  with  Older  Pupils,  Activities  in 
Church  and  Community.     "By  their  Fruits." 

The  Standard:    The  Principles  of  Teach- 
ing as  Scientifically  Determined. 


Standards 
AND  Tests 

OF 

Process 


Teaching 


Organi- 
zation 


Adminis- 
tration 


The  Test:  Observation  of  the  Teacher's 
Work  by  the  Supervisor,  and  Self-obser- 
vation by  the  Teacher,  with  written 
Reports. 

The  Standard:  (i)  Every  Function  of  a 
School  of  Religion  to  be  Definitely 
Assigned  to  some  Individual.  (2)  Econ- 
omy of  Human  Energy  by  Avoidance  of 
Duplications  and  of  Useless  Enterprises. 
(3)  All  Work  to  be  Supervised. 

The  Test:  (i)  Comparison  with  other 
Schools,  Religious  and  Secular.  (2) 
The  History  and  Theory  of  Religious  Edu- 
cation. (3)  Direct  Study  of  Results  of 
this  School.  Hence  an  Adequate  System 
of  Records  and  Reports. 

The  Standard:  (i)  All  Available  Power  to 
be  Utilized,  including  Powers  of  Pupils. 
(2)  All  Workers  to  be  Trained.  Pro- 
vision to  be  made  for  Growth  after 
Formal  Training  has  Ended.  (3)  Selec- 
tion, Promotion,  etc.,  on  Basis  of  Efii- 
ciency  only.  (4)  Search  for  the  Best; 
Experimental  Attitude;  Readiness  to 
Improve.  (5)  Humane,  Co-operative 
Relations  between  all  Persons  Involved. 
Expressions  of  Appreciation. 

The  Test:  (i)  Annual  Report  from  Each 
Worker  upon  His  Own  Part  of  the  Work. 
(2)  Annual  Summaries  and  Statistical 
Exhibits  that  show  where  both  Strength 
and  Weakness  lie.  (3)  Democratic 
Coimcil  of  Workers  for  Digesting  this 
Knowledge  and  Planning  Improvements. 


242  THE  GHURCH  SCHOOL 

tion,  or  church  school,  as  though  it  comprised  only  the  activi- 
ties that  have  their  centre  in  the  church  building.  But  a 
broader  conception  is  possible  and  necessary.  All  members  of 
the  church  who  have  growing  children  should  be  accounted 
members  of  the  staff  of  instructors,  accounted  so  not  merely  in 
sentiment,  but  also  administratively.  Upon  the  birth  of  the 
first  child  the  parents'  names  should  be  recorded  as  teachers, 
just  as  the  child's  name  should  be  recorded  as  a  pupil  in  the 
Cradle  Roll  or  Font  Roll  department.  And  not  until  all  their 
living  children  have  graduated  from  the  church  school  should 
the  names  of  such  parents  be  dropped  from  the  roll  of  teachers. 
In  the  meantime  they  should  be  given  continuous  supervision; 
they  should  make  annual  reports  just  as  other  teachers  and  all 
officers  should  do;  and  training  classes  and  departmental  staff 
meetings  should  be  provided.^ 

The  evils  of  isolation  are  nowhere  more  in  evidence  than  in 
the  semichaotic  condition  of  religious  education  in  church 
families.  Here  are  multitudes  of  parents  who  would  like  to 
know  how  to  rear  their  children  to  be  Christians,  but  no  one 
tells  them  how.  The  chief  trouble  is  not  that  knowledge  on  this 
point  is  limited  (as  it  certainly  is),  but  that  there  is  no  organized 
method  of  spreading  the  knowledge  that  is  available.  And 
one  reason  why  our  knowledge  on  this  point  is  so  limited  is  that 
there  is  no  organized  method  of  observing  and  recording  the 
experience  of  families.  Beginnings  of  the  right  kind  have  been 
made  in  the  distribution  of  material  by  the  superintendents  of 

J  In  my  own  thinking,  what  is  here  suggested  has  its  place  in  a  compre- 
hensive conception  of  a  working  church.  The  notion  of  a  church  as  a  con- 
gregation to  be  talked  to,  or  as  a  fellowship  in  anything  that  does  not  include 
co-operative  labor,  does  not  of  itself  go  far  enough.  What  does  it  mean  to 
the  people  themselves  that  they  are  members  of  churches?  Doubtless  it 
means  refraining  from  certain  sorts  of  wrong  conduct,  going  to  chm-ch,  and 
leading  a  life  of  prayer.  It  ought  to  mean,  in  addition,  a  specific,  defined,  and 
supervised  sphere  of  labor  for  the  promotion  of  the  democracy  of  God.  Is  it 
too  much  to  hope  that  the  time  will  yet  come  when  every  member  will  be 
recorded  in  the  books  of  the  church  as  a  worker  in  a  certain  department; 
'  when  each  of  these  departments  will  have  plans  and  policies  that  bear  speci- 
fically, not  in  any  merely  generic  and  hazy  way,  upon  actual  conditions  that 
confront  its  members;  when  businesslike  supervision  will  be  provided  for 
every  worker;  when  every  worker  will  render  regular  reports  of  his  activities, 
and  when  progress  or  decline  in  his  department  will  be  annually  ascertained 
and  recorded  ?     This,  I  conceive,  fairly  represents  what  the  church  is  here  for. 


THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL  243 

Cradle  Roll  and  Font  Roll  departments,  and  in  the  holding 
of  parents'  meetings  and  parents'  classes  in  various  Sunday 
schools.  But  these  are  only  a  drop  in  the  bucket;  they  are 
only  a  mild  palliation  of  an  enormous  waste. 

The  problem  of  getting  time  enough  for  effective  religious 
education.  When  present  inefficiencies  are  pointed  out,  few 
remarks  are  more  common  than  this :  "  Well,  how  much  can  you 
expect  from  a  half -hour's  instruction  once  a  week?  We  must 
have  more  time."  Thereupon  there  is  casting  about  for  either 
some  method  of  getting  religious  instruction  into  the  public 
schools,  or  for  establishing  week-day  religious  instruction  by  the 
churches  themselves.  The  problem  is  a  real  and  pressing  one, 
and  it  is  not  less  serious  than  it  seems  to  be;  yet  the  time- 
situation  as  a  whole  has  never  yet,  I  believe,  been  correctly 
analyzed  in  print.  Reserving  for  a  subsequent  chapter  the 
relations  of  state  education  to  religion,  let  me  describe  in  blunt 
fashion  the  present  situation  within  the  churches. 

(1)  The  churches  are  wasting  a  large  proportion  of  the  precious 
half-hour  for  religious  instruction  on  Sunday.  They  are  wasting 
it  by  curtailing  it  for  trivial  causes,  such  as  speeches  by  strangers, 
a  superintendent's  dawdling,  the  intervention  of  unimportant 
"special  occasions";  by  interruptions,  as  by  the  secretary;  by 
unnecessary  distractions;  and  by  failure  to  supervise  the  teacher 
or  to  train  him  so  as  to  get  the  best  possible  work  from  him. 

(2)  It  is  not  true  that  only  a  half-hour  is  available  for  religious 
instruction  on  Sunday.  In  most  Sunday  schools  the  period 
for  class  instruction  could  be  lengthened  fifteen  minutes  by 
adding  to  it  the  time  that  is  now  wasted  or  ill  used.  The  school 
begins  late,  protracts  the  opening  exercises  without  reason, 
makes  clumsy  transitions  because  system  and  team-work  are 
weak,  and  takes  the  time  of  the  general  session  for  various 
things  that  could  be  attended  to  at  least  as  well  otherwise. 
To  test  the  applicability  of  this  analysis  to  your  school,  take 
your  watch  in  hand  for  a  few  Sundays,  and  write  down  the 
number  of  minutes  spent  upon  each  procedure,  being  sure  to 
include  any  items  like  those  mentioned  in  the  preceding  sen- 
tence;   then  write  out  your  judgment  as  to  the  time  needed. 


^ 


244  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

on  educational  grounds,  for  each  of  these  procedures.  Was 
the  prayer  too  long,  or  not  long  enough?  Did  the  super- 
intendent do  any  unnecessary  talking  ?     Etc.,  etc. 

(3)  Every  minute  of  the  Sunday  school,  not  merely  the  class 
period,  shoidd  be  made  educationally  effective.  Why  talk  as  if 
church  education  were  shut  up  to  a  bare  half -hour,  when  per- 
haps thrice  this  time  is  already  available  ?  Our  greatest  weak- 
ness is  not  lack  of  time,  after  all,  but  lack  of  effectiveness  in  the 
use  of  what  we  have. 

(4)  It  has  not  been  demonstrated  that  a  longer  Sunday  session 
is  impracticable.  We  need  experiments  with,  say,  a  two-hour 
session,  which  shall  include,  besides  a  period  for  worship  and 
one  for  recitation,  a  period  for  study  (under  supervision),  and 
a  period  for  planning  and  administering  enterprises  of  social 
helpfulness. 

(5)  When  week-day  instruction  is  entered  upon,  as  it  must 
probably  be  sooner  or  later,  it  should  be  an  organic  part  of  a  general 
plan  for  the  church  school,  and  there  should  be  unified  administra- 
tion. That  is  to  say,  the  time  problem  is  not  an  isolated  one. 
The  question  whether  we  ought  to  have  more  time  is  bound 
up  with  the  question  of  what  we  would  do  with  it  if  we  had  it. 
Agitation  for  week-day  instruction  has  only  too  often  proceeded 
as  if,  granted  the  time,  we  would  be  ready  to  go  ahead,  whereas 
such  matters  as  the  content  and  method  of  instruction  and  the 
relation  thereof  to  the  Sunday  instruction,  and  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  administration  have  hardly  begun  to  be  considered. 
Nor  has  the  problem  of  securing  competent  teachers  for  week- 
day classes  even  approached  a  solution  as  yet.^  I  would  not 
imply  that  these  problems  must  all  be  worked  out  in  advance  of 
experiment,  but  only  that  any  experiment  that  is  made  should 
proceed  from  a  competent  grasp  of  educational  principles.  We 
should  hesitate,  we  should  refuse,  to  establish  another  isolated, 

,  falsely  self-sufficient  agency. 

(6)  The  problem  of  securing  a  sufficient  proportion  of  the  pupil's 

*I  have  presented  concrete  instances  of  these  problems  in  "A  General 
View  of  the  Movement  for  Correlating  Religious  Education  with  Public  In- 
struction."— Religious  Education  XI  (1916),  109-122. 


THE   CHURCH  SCHOOL  245 

time  is  bound  up  icith  that  of  securing  a  sujjicient  'proportion  of  the 
teacher's  time,  and  this  problem  is  bound  up,  in  turn,  with  the  in- 
justices of  our  economic  order.  We  should  not  put  ourselves  in 
the  position  of  asking  for  additional  time  in  which  to  do  poor 
teaching;  but  when  we  ask  for  more  of  the  teacher's  time  in 
order  that  he  may  fit  himself  for  more  skilful  work,  we  confront, 
in  a  great  proportion  of  cases,  the  grim  fact  of  economic  pressure 
so  great  as  to  leave  insufficient  time  and  energy  for  the  necessary 
study.  A  large  part  of  the  work  of  religious  education  is  being 
done  at  the  present  moment  with  only  the  fag  ends  of  human 
energy.  All  honor  to  the  housekeepers,  the  factory  operatives, 
the  stenographers,  the  salespeople,  and  the  bookkeepers  who  are 
giving  a  considerable  proportion  of  their  free  time  to  uncom- 
pensated and  often  unhonored  labor  in  the  Sunday  school. 
Many  of  them  are  bravely,  but  with  great  handicaps,  struggling 
to  secure  adequate  training  for  their  work.  The  spectacle  is 
more  noble  than  it  is  pathetic.  But  most  of  all  it  is  a  challenge 
to  the  church  to  realize  how  her  very  life  is  being  drained  by 
the  economic  order  against  which  she  has  only  feebly  protested. 
The  long  working  day,  and  the  high-pressure  methods  that  now 
prevail  are  not  necessary  to  feed,  clothe,  house,  and  educate 
all  the  people,  nor  are  the  products  of  the  people's  industry 
distributed  upon  any  such  principle.  Let  us  face  the  fact  that 
the  great  problem  of  time  in  religious  education  is  identical 
with  the  problem  of  the  consumption  of  the  time  of  the  many 
in  heaping  up  possessions  for  the  few. 

The  financial  support  of  the  church  schooL  That  the 
church  school  should  be  supported  by  the  church  should  be 
rather  obvious  from  the  principles  that  have  been  stated. 
There  are  two  great  objections  to  the  common  practice  of  pay- 
ing the  expenses  of  the  school  by  collections  of  money  from  its 
pupils:  First,  the  pupils'  contributions  can  be  made  far  more 
educative  by  a  different  plan,  and,  second,  when  the  school  pays 
its  own  expenses  the  church  lacks  an  important  reminder  of  its 
function  as  religious  educator,  and  is  practically  invited  to  let 
the  school  go  its  own  way.  Let  us  consider  these  two  points 
in  reverse  order. 


246  THE  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

Having  the  school  regularly  in  the  church  budget  is  more 
than  a  matter  of  paying  bills.  It  is  an  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  the  church's  inward  and  spiritual  comprehension  of  its 
central  task.  Something  is  gained  when  the  school  merely 
appears  along  with  the  minister,  the  janitor,  the  choir,  the  coal 
man,  and  the  insurance  agent.  But  the  relative  amounts 
appropriated  for  these  various  items  reveal  something  of  im- 
portance. Here  is  a  church  with  a  budget  of  twenty  thousand 
dollars  for  local  expenditures  that  appropriates  for  its  Sunday 
school  the  same  amount  that  it  pays  to  one  janitor,  namely, 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.^  This  is  one-fifth  of  the  amount 
appropriated  for  church  music.  A  budget  like  this  is  a  veritable 
window  into  the  local  ecclesiastical  mind.  Well-to-do  churches 
are  buying  for  their  Sunday  schools  printed  matter  that  is 
educationally  as  well  as  commercially  cheap.  There  are 
wealthy  churches  that  "cannot  afford"  to  employ  a  director 
of  religious  education,  and  when  the  payment  of  teachers  is 
suggested  ask:  "Will  not  paying  the  teacher  interfere  with  the 
spirituality  of  his  work?"  We  need,  then,  for  the  sake  of  the 
church  as  a  whole  to  keep  the  Sunday  school  in  the  church 
budget,  and  to  keep  on  increasing  the  appropriation  until  the 
church  wakes  up  to  the  greatness  of  its  task. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  pupils  in  the  school  need  to  be  trained 
in  giving.  Ordinarily,  it  appears,  the  "authorities  of  the 
school"  decide  where  the  pupils'  money  shall  go,  and  then 
approach  the  pupils  with  little  more  than  "Give,  give!"  One 
child  is  reported  to  have  been  under  the  delusion  that  he  was 
giving  to  his  teacher !  Real  training  in  giving  requires :  (a) 
Intelligence  as  to  the  object  for  which  money  is  solicited. 
(6)  Comparison  of  one  object  with  another  so  as  to  judge  how 
money  should  be  apportioned  between  them,     (c)  Free  choice 

1  It  is  to  be  assumed,  of  course,  that  a  part  of  the  salary  of  both  pastor  and 
janitor,  and  a  part  of  the  expenditure  usually  listed  under  lighting,  heating, 
insurance,  repairs,  etc.,  are  devoted  to  religious  education.  But  even  when 
these  are  added  (.to  the  item  for  the  Sunday  school  the  total  bears  no  fitting 
relation  to  the  fundamental  place  and  the  proper  cost  of  religious  education. 
It  would  be  well  for  every  church  to  make  a  budget  that  woxild  show  for  whom 
(children  or  adults)  all  moneys  are  appropriated. 


THE   CHURCH   SCHOOL  247 

between  alternatives,  (d)  The  development  of  co-operation 
in  judging  causes  and  in  supporting  them,  (e)  Continuity, 
the  habit  of  giving,  sustained  loyalty  to  a  cause.  (/)  A  report 
to  the  giver  as  to  what  has  been  done  with  his  contributions, 
and  what  they  have  accomplished. 

The  pupils  in  the  church  school  should  be  led,  in  accordance 
with  these  principles,  to  support  the  local  church,  to  give  to 
missions  and  other  church  enterprises,  and  to  support  philan- 
thropies. To  exploit  a  school  in  the  interest  of  a  financial 
need,  to  "work"  it  as  a  source  of  increased  revenues,  to  play 
upon  children's  untrained  sympathies  and  impulses — this  is 
degradation.  Every  financial  transaction  in  which  a  pupil 
takes  part  should  be  educative  to  him.  If  we  seek  first  this 
educational  righteousness,  we  need  have  no  fears  that  the 
contributions  of  the  pupils  will  be  niggardly,  but  if  we  do  not 
train  them  thus  to  intelligent,  discriminating,  systematic  giv- 
ing, we  need  not  be  surprised  if  they  make  crotchety  and  un- 
generous givers  in  maturity.^ 

1  These  principles  may  be  worked  out  by  various  methods.  The  dupli- 
cate envelope  system  offers  a  great  advance  over  traditional  ways,  but  much 
more  than  the  envelope  is  needed.  I  look  forward  to  a  time  when  every 
church  will  report  all  its  receipts  and  expenditures  to  the  pupils  in  the  Sunday 
school,  and  when  the  great  church  societies  also  will  give  an  account  of  their 
stewardship  to  the  learners.  In  the  Union  School  of  Religion  each  class  has 
its  own  treasury,  out  of  which  it  votes  its  contributions  after  studying  various 
causes.  These  contributions  fall  into  two  classes,  those  made  to  causes  that 
the  school  as  a  whole  is  helping  to  support,  such  as  a  missionary  enterprise 
and  a  local  philanthropy,  and  those  whicli  the  class  itself,  with  the  help  (but 
never  the  dictation)  of  the  teacher,  chooses  as  its  particular  sphere  of  help- 
fulness. When  a  class  gives  a  contribution  to  one  of  the  general  causes, 
the  class  treasurer  pays  over  the  amount  to  the  school  treasurer. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

EDUCATIONAL   RELATIONS   BETWEEN   STATE 
AND   CHURCH 

"''The   social   significance   of   the    modem   secular   state. 

The  term  "secular  state"  is  here  used  as  the  most  convenient 
designation  for  a  pohtical  society  in  which  organized  religion 
as  well  as  individual  rehgious  attitude  is  an  altogether  vol- 
untary matter.  This  implies,  of  course,  that  the  financial 
support  of  organized  religion  is  voluntary,  not  a  matter  of 
taxation,  which  is  a  form  of  legal  compulsion. 

The  tendency  of  modern  states  to  become  secular  is  unmis- 
takable. First,  the  civil  power,  refusing  to  accept  dictation 
from  the  ecclesiastical  power,  holds  itself  to  be  co-ordinate 
therewith.  Next,  the  state  takes  over  ecclesiastical  functions 
of  many  kinds,  such  as  charities  and  education.  Disestablish- 
ment follows,  and  finally  even  patronage  is  withdrawn.  Only 
"free  churches"  then  remain — free  in  the  same  sense  as  a 
literary  society  or  a  golf -club. 

This  growing  separation  of  church  from  state  is  a  phase  of 
the  growth  of  popular  government.  The  necessity  that  such 
government  should  have  an  intelligent  electorate  has  caused  it  to 
assume  the  duty  of  educating  all  the  people.  Here,  more  than 
anywhere  else,  we  shall  find  the  nerve  of  the  secular  state. 
Here  civil  society  procreates  itself,  so  to  say,  in  the  thought  and 
the  conscience  of  children.  Just  here  is  where  the  separation  of 
the  churches  from  the  taxing  power  is  most  difficult  in  both 
theory  and  practice.  Long  after  disestablishment  occurs,  the 
two  powers  remain  entangled  in  the  matter  of  education. 

If  we  desire  a  disentanglement  that  shall  be  in  the  interest 
of  a  socially  adequate  education,  we  must  look  at  the  state 
school  itself  (which  we  of  the  United  States  commonly  call  the 

248 


STATE   AND   CHURCH  249 

"public"  school)  as  an  expression  of  certain  great  social  aspira- 
tions. We  must  realize,  to  begin  with,  that  the  secularization  of 
the  state,  and  therefore  of  state  schools,  has  been  necessitated 
chiefly  by  the  social  inadequacy  of  ecclesiastical  traditions  and 
practices.  The  state,  not  the  church,  has  been  the  decisive 
defender  and  guarantor  of  fundamental  liberties,  such  as  the 
right  to  think,  to  speak,  to  associate  with  one's  fellows,  and 
to  stand  before  courts  of  law  as  the  equal  of  any  citizen.  The 
conception  of  indefeasible  rights,  which  no  authority,  whether 
it  speaks  in  the  name  of  man  or  of  God,  may  abridge — this 
conception  may  almost  be  said  to  have  given  birth  to  the  modern 
state. 

The  free  state,  moreover,  rather  than  any  church,  has  been 
the  chief  practical  realization  of  the  unity  and  the  solidarity 
of  men.  The  Jews,  for  example,  becoming  free  citizens,  find 
in  the  state  a  human  recognition  that  the  dominant  religion  of 
the  western  world  had  never,  in  any  of  its  main  branches, 
accorded  to  them.  The  great  mixer  of  races  m  this  country 
has  been  the  civic  rather  than  the  ecclesiastical  community, 
and  before  all  else  the  public  school. 

Without  doubt  what  is  humane  and  democratic  in  the 
modern  state  owes  a  large  part  of  its  inspiration  to  religion. 
Within  Christianity  from  the  days  of  Jesus  there  has  been 
the  leaven  of  democracy.  Though  this  leaven  has  been  for  the 
most  part,  to  use  Jesus'  own  word,  "hidden,"  there  has  ap- 
peared from  time  to  time  evidence  that  the  germ  is  not  dead. 
Not  only  have  individuals  here  and  there  seen  and  declared  the 
incompatibility  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  with  all  oppression,  ex- 
ploitation, and  denial  of  equality  of  opportunity,  but  minor 
groups  of  many  sorts  have  endeavored  to  live  the  brotherhood 
that  they  professed,  and  some  phases  of  liberty  have  been 
espoused  by  whole  denominations.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
a  prophet  of  the  rights  of  men  has  been  an  "  infidel,"  and  cer- 
tainly the  secular  state  has  actually  brought  men  together  as 
no  religious  organization  has  done. 

One  might  maintain,  with  considerable  show  of  reason,  that 
the  socially  integrative  power  of  religion  has  passed  to  the  state. 


250  STATE   AND   CHURCH 

/  even  the  secular  state.  During  the  rise  of  popular  government, 
^-^'the  populace  has  been  divided  on  religious  grounds,  divided 
not  only  as  respects  the  great  historic  religions  of  the  world — 
Christianity,  Judaism,  etc. — but  divided  also  into  apparently 
irreconcilable  parties  within  the  dominant  religion.  Indeed, 
so  bitter  has  been  religious  partisanship  at  times  that  the  civil 
power  has  had  to  step  in  to  preserve  the  peace.  Religion  has 
had  to  be  protected  from  religion  by  the  secular  arm.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  secular  power  has  had  to  guard  against  allow- 
ing its  prerogatives  or  its  funds  to  come  under  the  control  of 
one  or  another  religious  party. 

In  short,  then,  the  secular  state,  particularly  in  its  schools, 
is  our  highest  social  achievement  in  these  two  respects:  (1) 
The  securing  of  freedom  and  equal  rights  for  individuals,  and 
(2)  The  organization  of  authority  upon  the  basis  of  manhood 
rather  than  upon  the  basis  of  hereditary  or  other  class  privilege. 
That  we  are  still  at  the  beginnings  in  both  these  matters  is 
clear  enough.  Even  fundamental  rights  are  not  too  secure  as 
yet,  and  the  spirit  of  democracy  is  still  engaged  in  the  struggle 
against  privilege.  But  we  have  definitely  entered  upon  the 
struggle,  and  we  have  entered  upon  it  specifically  as  members  of 
the  secular  state. 

Why  the  public  schools  in  the  United  States  are  increas- 
ingly secular.  In  the  District  of  Columbia,  the  territories, 
the  Indian  reservations,  and  the  insular  possessions,  public 
education  comes  under  the  provision  of  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion that  forbids  the  Congress  to  make  any  law  concerning  an 
establishment  of  religion.  The  full  force  of  this  prohibition  was 
not  at  first  recognized,  for  government  funds  were  appropriated 
for  the  support  of  Indian  schools  under  the  control  of  religious 
bodies,  some  Catholic,  some  Protestant.  From  this  patronage 
of  churches,  however,  the  government  has  already  partly  with- 
drawn, and  complete  withdrawal  is  in  sight. 

In  the  States  of  the  Union  public  education  is  under  State 
control,  and  is  therefore  not  subject  to  the  federal  prohibition 
of  an  established  church.  Some  of  the  oldest  States  had  at 
the  outset  of  their  history  what  amounted  practically  to  a  State 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  251 

church.  But  they  have  moved  away  from  such  entanglements, 
and  the  younger  States  have  commonly  begun  their  career  with 
constitutional  bars  against  them.  At  the  present  time  the 
separation  of  the  state  from  the  church  is  axiomatic  through- 
out the  Union. 

But  the  application  of  the  axiom  to  the  public  schools  has 
not  been  easy  or  uniform.  The  constitutions,  the  statutes,  the 
court  decisions,  and  the  administrative  precedents  of  the  differ- 
ent States  differ  greatly  from  one  another.  Nevertheless,  a 
general  trend,  an  unambiguous  one,  is  discernible:  The  States 
participate  less  and  less  in  anything  that  is  specifically  recog- 
nized by  the  people  as  religion. 

Before  we  ask  for  the  reasons  of  this  trend,  let  us  glance  at  a 
single  specimen  of  the  change  in  question.  The  Ordinance  for 
the  Government  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  promulgated  in 
17S7,  that  is,  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River,  con- 
tains this  clause:  "Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being 
necessary  to  good  government  and  the  happiness  of  mankind, 
schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  forever  be  encouraged.'* 
Here,  it  is  clear,  the  state  has  the  distinct  intention  of  teaching 
religion,  or  of  seeing  that  it  is  taught.  But  the  constitutions 
of  the  States  that  were  carved  out  of  this  territory  show  a  pro- 
gressive modification  of  this  intention  until,  in  some  instances, 
no  trace  of  it  is  left. 

The  first  modification  is  in  the  constitution  of  Ohio,  which 
was  adopted  in  1802:  "ReHgion,  morality,  and  knowledge  be- 
ing essentially  necessary  to  the  good  government  and  happiness 
of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  instruction  shall  forever 
be  encouraged  by  legislative  provision,  not  inconsistent  with  the 
rights  of  conscience."  In  1851  the  statement  is  changed  still 
further:  "Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being  essential 
to  good  government,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  general  assem- 
bly to  pass  suitable  laws  to  protect  every  religious  denomination 
in  the  peaceable  enjoyment  of  its  own  mode  of  public  worship, 
and  to  encourage  schools  and  the  means  of  instruction.''  Thus, 
first  the  rights  of  conscience  are  brought  in  as  a  limitation; 
then  the  ground  of  the  provision  is  narrowed  to  the  needs  of 


252  STATE   AND   CHURCH 

good  government,  no  reference  being  made  to  any  other  value 
in  religion;  finally,  the  duty  imposed  changes  from  encouraging 
schools  in  which  religion  shall  be  promoted  to  protecting  re- 
ligious denominations  in  their  own  modes  of  worship. 

Indiana  puts  into  her  constitution  in  1816  only  this  shred 
of  the  original  statement  in  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  "Knowl- 
edge and  learning  generally  diffused  through  a  community  be- 
ing essential  to  the  preservation  of  a  free  government,"  fol- 
lowed by  regulations  respecting  school  lands.  In  1851  the 
statement  is  changed  to  read  as  follows:  "Knowledge  and 
learning  generally  diffused  throughout  a  community  being 
essential  to  the  preservation  of  a  free  government,  it  shall  be 
the  duty  of  the  general  assembly  to  encourage,  by  all  suitable 
means,  moral,  intellectual,  scientific,  and  agricultural  improve- 
ment." Michigan  in  1850  makes  the  list  still  briefer:  "The 
legislature  shall  encourage  the  promotion  of  intellectual,  scien- 
tific, and  agricultural  improvement."  The  various  constitu- 
tions of  Illinois  have  no  trace  of  the  original  declaration  of  1787. 
The  Minnesota  constitution,  1857,  declares:  "The  stability 
of  a  republican  form  of  government  depending  mainly  upon 
the  intelligence  of  the  people,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  legis- 
lature to  establish  a  general  and  uniform  system  of  public 
schools."  Here  at  last  not  even  morality  is  mentioned,  and 
intelligence  is  declared  to  be  the  main  support  of  republican  in- 
stitutions. 

Though  these  items  cover  only  one  phase  of  the  movement 
in  a  limited  part  of  the  country,  the  impression  that  they  con- 
vey of  a  change  toward  secularism  correctly  represents  a  general 
shift  in  most  of  the  States  of  the  North  and  West.  What  is  the 
explanation?  Not  any  general  decline  of  religion  during  this 
period,  but  the  clash  of  competing  religious  bodies  between 
which  the  States  determined  to  be  neutral.  If  the  teaching  of 
religion  in  the  public  schools  produces  a  wrangling  community 
or  school  district,  the  State  follows  the  clear  dictate  of  practical 
wisdom  when  it  removes  the  divisive  object  out  of  the  schools. 
The  whole  experiment  in  popular  government  would  be  im- 
perilled if  the  schools  should  become  class  schools.  They  must 
be,  at  all  cost,  schools  of  the  whole  people. 


STATE   AND   CHURCH  253 

A  convenient  example  of  the  practical  logic  that  has  just 
been  referred  to  is  the  contest  between  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tants over  public  school  funds  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  the 
forties.  In  the  law  of  1813,  which  established  a  system  of  pub- 
lic instruction,  there  was  a  clause  that  provided  for  distributing 
the  funds  for  the  City  of  New  York  among  benevolent,  religious, 
and  educational  associations  that  maintained  charity  schools. 
As  a  result,  some  eight  or  ten  religious  societies  received  sub- 
sidies. In  1824  the  legislature  gave  to  the  common  council 
of  the  city  authority  to  designate  the  societies  that  should 
thus  share  in  the  public  funds.  The  scheme  produced  con- 
stant friction,  particularly  because  the  Catholics  felt  that 
they  did  not  secure  their  proper  share.  A  chief  Protestant 
beneficiary  was  the  "Public  School  Society,"  which  maintained 
what  amounted  to  a  chain  of  public  schools  without  public 
supervision.  The  Catholics  desired  to  be  put  substantially 
upon  a  parity  with  this  society.  A  petition  addressed  to  the 
common  council  failed  after  a  long  debate.  An  attempt  to 
secure  relief  through  the  legislature  likewise  failed.  At  last 
the  question  was  carried  to  the  electorate  itself.  The  result 
was  a  law  that  no  school  shall  receive  any  portion  of  school 
moneys  in  which  the  religious  doctrines  or  tenets  of  any  Chris- 
tian or  other  religious  sect  shall  be  taught,  inculcated,  or  prac- 
tised.^ 

Another  specimen  of  friction  and  of  the  way  of  removing  it 
comes  from  within  the  original  Northwest  Territory.  As  early 
as  1842  Cincinnati  was  agitated  by  complaints  that  text-books 
used  in  the  schools  contained  passages  that  were  obnoxious  to 
Catholics,  and  that  Catholic  children  were  required  to  read 
passages  from  the  Protestant  Bible.  This  agitation  kept  up 
for  twenty-seven  years,  when  Catholic  members  of  the  board  of 
education,  aided  by  certain  liberals  called  "freethinkers," 
passed  a  resolution  that  prohibited  the  reading  of  the  Bible 
in  the  schools.  Some  citizens  applied  to  the  superior  court 
for  a  permanent  injunction  to  prevent  the  enforcement  of  this 
regulation.     The  court,  by  a  divided  vote,  granted  the  petition, 

»  For  the  history  of  this  most  interesting  case  see  the  classified  Bibliography, 
Division  G,  first  and  third  paragraphs. 


254  STATE  AND  CHURCH 

but  an  appeal  was  had  to  the  supreme  court,  which  reversed  the 
decision  and  upheld  the  right  of  the  board  of  education  to  make 
the  regulation  in  question. 

This  right  had  been  attacked  on  the  ground  of  the  Ohio  con- 
stitutional provision  of  1851,  which  has  already  been  quoted: 
"Religion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being  essential  to  good 
government."  This,  argued  the  petitioners,  not  only  requires 
religious  instruction  in  the  public  schools,  but  specifically 
Christian  instruction  based  upon  the  Bible.  This  was  inferred 
from  the  historic  connection  of  this  clause  in  the  Ohio  constitu- 
tion with  the  Ordinance  of  1787.  The  framers  of  this  Ordi- 
nance, it  was  said,  could  have  had  in  mind  none  but  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  Opposing  counsel  pointed  out  that  the  Christian 
religion  as  thus  understood  is  the  Protestant  religion,  which  is 
essentially  sectarian,  and  that  the  use  of  the  Bible  contemplated 
by  the  petitioners  is  a  distinctly  Protestant  use.  Consequently, 
it  was  argued,  the  petitioners  practically  maintain  that  Ohio  has 
a  state  religion.  Therefore  counsel  for  the  board  of  education 
labored  to  show  that  the  State  of  Ohio,  like  the  United  States, 
has  no  religion,  Protestant  or  Catholic,  Christian  or  other. 

In  the  superior  court,  two  of  the  three  judges  assented,  each 
in  his  own  way,  to  the  proposition  that  the  State  of  Ohio  has 
a  religion.  "We  are  led  to  the  conclusion,''  says  one  of  them, 
"  that  revealed  religion,  as  it  is  made  known  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, is  that  alone  that  is  recognized  by  our  constitution." 
The  dissenting  judge,  however,  declares  that  the  only  way  in 
which  neutrality  between  the  sects  can  be  maintained  in  the 
schools  is  by  excluding  religious  instruction  altogether.  "To 
hold  that  Protestants  have  a  right  to  have  their  mode  of  worship 
and  their  Bible  used  in  the  common  schools,  against  the  will  of 
the  board  of  education  ...  is  to  hold  to  the  union  of  church 
and  state,  however  we  may  repudiate  and  reproach  the  name." 
,  The  opinion  of  the  supreme  court  coincides  with  that  of  the 
minority  member  of  the  superior  court.  It  denies  that  the 
Christian  religion  is  a  part  of  the  law;  it  denies  altogether 
that  the  state  has  a  religion.  It  is  true,  runs  the  reasoning,  that 
religion  is  necessary  to  good  government,  as  the  constitution 


STATE   AND   CHURCH  255 

says,  and  the  state  must  have  the  best  reh'gion,  but  the  best 
religion  is  to  be  had,  as  the  constitution  indicates,  by  keeping 
hands  off — by  protecting  all  forms  of  religion,  so  that,  through 
their  own  interactions  and  conflicts,  the  best  may  come  to  light.  ^ 

The  difficulty  of  maintaining  in  law  the  distinction  be- 
tween religion  and  sectarian  religion.  There  is  a  large 
mass  of  opinion  among  religionists  and  educators  to  the  effect 
that  since  church  and  religion  are  not  the  same,  the  separation 
of  the  state  from  the  church  does  not  imply  that  the  state  or^ 
its  schools  must  be  non-religious.  The  warring  sects  hold  much 
in  common;  why  should  it  not  be  taught  in  the  schools? 
Some  court  decisions  support  this  conclusion.  For  example,  in 
the  celebrated  Edgerton  case,  the  supreme  court  of  Wisconsin 
held  that  the  use  of  any  version  of  the  Bible  as  a  text-book  in 
the  public  schools  is  sectarian  instruction,  yet  one  of  the  judges 
took  pains  to  say  that  the  decision  of  the  court  does  not  hinder 
the  use  of  passages  of  the  Bible  for  the  purpose  of  moral  in- 
struction, or  even  for  inculcating  the  broad  principles  of  re- 
ligion that  are  common  to  all  the  sects.^ 

As  a  matter  of  pure  theory  the  distinction  between  religion 
and  sectarianism  can  doubtless  maintain  itself.  In  the  ad- 
ministration of  schools,  however,  there  are  factors  other  than 
those  contemplated  by  the  theory.  These  additional  factors  are : 

(1)  The  teacher,  who  is  almost  certain  to  have  received  his 
religious  training  from  a  sect.  No  teacher,  it  may  be  said, 
can  teach  with  conviction  what  is  common  to  the  sects  with- 
out more  or  less  leaning  toward  or  away  from  something  in 
some  of  the  sects.  By  the  position  of  an  emphasis,  or  by  silence 
with  regard  to  some  point,  if  not  by  positive  assertion,  a  particu- 
lar tint  is  sure  to  be  given  to  the  instruction.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  is  there,  or  can  there  be  in  real  life  any  such  thing  as  a 
colorless  religion?    Is  not  the  notion  an  abstraction?    Actual 

1  The  Bible  in  the  Public  Schools.  Arguments  in  the  Case  of  John  D.  Minor 
et  al  Superior  Court  of  Cincinnati.  With  the  Opinions  and  Decision  of  the 
Court  Cincinnati.  Robert  Clarke  &  Co.,  1870;  Board  of  Education.  Opinion 
and  Decision  of  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  in  J.  D.  Minor  vs.  Board  of  Education. 
Cincinnati.  1873;  see  also  23  Ohio  State  Reports,  Granger,  21-254. 

2  76  Wisconsin  Reports,  Conover,  177. 


256  STATE  AND   CHURCH 

religion,  the  sort  that  one  feels  and  acts  out,  is  always  a  product 
of  particular  historical  conditions,  and  it  always  involves  par- 
ticular social  relations  over  which  conflict  is  likely,  even  certain, 
to  occur.  How,  for  example,  can  any  actual  religiousness  be 
entirely  indifferent  to  priests?  How  can  one  steer  a  middle 
course  between  reverence  for  them  and  hostility  toward  them? 
If  one  assumes  an  attitude  of  simple  non-recognition,  is  not 
this  itself  hostility? 

(2)  The  parents  and  the  board  of  education  that  represents 
them.  We  must  reckon  with  the  possibility  of  religious  sensi- 
tiveness on  the  part  of  persons  who  have  not  studied  the  phi- 
losophy of  religion,  and  are  not  trained  to  see  or  feel  the  religious 
affinities  between  sects.  The  control  of  the  schools  rests  ul- 
timately in  plain  citizens  like  these.  One  group  of  them  easily 
becomes  distrustful  toward  religious  teaching  by  a  teacher  who 
belongs  to  a  competing  group.  Moreover,  the  most  strictly 
non-partisan  teaching  that  can  be  achieved  is  likely  to  be  un- 
satisfactory by  reason  of  what  it  omits. 

(3)  The  ecclesiastical  organizations.  Most  of  them  main- 
tain a  ministry  that  is  jealous  for  the  doctrines  of  its  particular 
church,  and  likewise  apprehensive  of  encroachments  from  some 
other  church.  Moreover,  several  churches  claim  to  be  the 
church.  The  direct  consequence  of  the  claim  to  exclusive 
authority  as  teacher  of  religion  is  this:  Insistence  that  any 
religious  teaching  that  is  given  in  the  public  schools  be  super- 
vised by  the  authority-possessing  church,  the  only  alternative 
being  the  exclusion  of  all  such  teaching.  Many  Protestants, 
accustomed  to  think  of  the  content  of  a  doctrine  without  special 
regard  to  the  problem  of  doctrinal  authority,  fancy  that  the 
public  schools  might  teach  in  peace  the  doctrines  that  are  held 
in  common  by  Catholic  and  Protestant.  But  this  would  be 
Protestant  teaching !  It  would  be  so  because  it  would  assume 
the  Protestant  position  of  liberty  in  teaching  and  in  learning. 
Catholics  will  not  accept  any  such  plan.  From  their  point  of 
view  any  religious  teaching  whatever  that  is  done  without 
Catholic  authorization  contains  an  implied  denial  of  the  Catholic 
doctrine  of  authority. 


STATE  AND  CHURCH  257 

It  is  conceivable  that  Protestantism,  because  of  its  tendency 
toward  religious  liberty,  that  is  to  say,  toward  appreciation  of 
common  humanity  as  against  all  sectarianism,  might,  if  left  to 
itself,  unite  upon  some  plan  for  teaching  religion  in  the  public 
schools.  But  under  existing  conditions  the  law  has  to  regard 
Protestantism  in  its  totality  as  a  sect  over  against  Catholicism 
as  another  sect.  If  it  seems  anomalous,  even  absurd,  that  a 
state  that  is  built  upon  liberty  and  equality  should  forbid  itself 
to  teach  religious  liberty,  we  should  remind  ourselves  that  our 
loyalties  are  manifold,  that  they  are  not  matters  of  logic  merely, 
and  that  they  win  many  of  their  greatest  victories  not  by  might 
nor  by  power,  but  by  spirit. 

Catholic  dissatisfaction  with  the  public  school  system. 
The  doctrine  of  infallibility,  as  formulated  by  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, declares  that  the  Pope,  when  he  speaks  with  authority,  is 
infallible  in  all  matters  of  faith  and  morals.  The  Catholic 
Church  as  teacher,  accordingly,  claims  exclusive  prerogative  in 
everything  that  is  included  under  the  category  of  character- 
formation.  In  strictness,  then,  the  state  has  no  right  to  teach 
morals.  But  can  the  teaching  of  morals,  or  can  character- 
formation  be  separated  from  the  ordinary  instruction  of  an 
elementary  curriculum?  The  Catholic  answer  is  that  the 
young  pupil,  knowing  that  his  schooling  is  intended  to  prepare 
him  for  life,  gets  from  his  school  experience  an  impression  of 
what  is  important  in  life.  If  the  school  is  silent  upon  the  great 
issues  of  religion  and  morals,  this  silence  itself  tends  to  give 
religion  and  morals  a  secondary  place  in  the  child's  outlook. 
Therefore  the  Catholic  contention  is  that  religion  and  morals 
must  be  taught  in  continuous  connection  with  the  usual  common 
school  branches. 

Two  things  follow:  First,  the  parish  school,  and  second,  dis- 
satisfaction toward  the  public  schools.  This  dissatisfaction 
manifests  itself  in  various  ways.  In  repeated  instances  the  read- 
ing of  the  Bible  in  the  schools  has  been  complained  of  on  the 
ground  of  its  sectarianism.  In  some  cases,  after  the  use  of  the 
Bible  has  been  discontinued,  the  schools  have  been  condemned  as 
"godless."     But  the  most  common  complaint  is  that  Catholics 


258  STATE  AND  CHURCH 

are  obliged  to  pay  taxes  for  the  support  of  schools  to  which  they 
cannot  conscientiously  send  their  children.  Hence  the  oft- 
renewed  agitation  for  a  division  of  the  school  funds  whereby 
parish  schools  shall  be  compensated  for  teaching  the  common 
school  branches. 

Premising  as  before  that  something  more  than  logic  is  in- 
volved in  the  adjustment  of  our  differences  (as  witness  the 
very  great  extent  to  which  Catholics  find  it  possible  to  use 
the  public  schools,  after  all),  we  may  well  notice  that,  in  strict 
logic,  there  is  a  profound  contrast,  which  amounts  to  opposition, 
between  the  theory  of  education  that  prevails  among  Catholic 
thinkers  and  that  which  underlies  education  in  the  modern 
secular  state.  The  theory  of  the  modern  state  is  that  it  has  a 
right  to  educate  the  children  as  a  necessity  for  its  own  safety 
and  progress,  and  as  a  means  of  promoting  the  common  wel- 
fare. Hence  compulsory  education  laws.  On  the  Catholic 
side,  when  the  right  to  educate  is  in  question,  the  emphasis  is 
upon  the  parent  rather  than  the  state.  Inasmuch,  however,  as 
the  parent  is  required  to  obey  the  church,  the  Catholic  theory 
may  fairly  be  said  to  be  this :  That  the  church  alone  has  a  right 
to  control  the  culture  of  mind  and  of  character.  That  is,  from 
the  standpoint  of  theory  alone,  accommodations  and  adjust- 
ments in  actual  practice  being  ignored,  Catholicism  has  not  yet 
assimilated  the  educational  philosophy  of  the  modern  state. 

The  demand  for  division  of  public  school  funds  with  parish 
schools.  The  argument  for  partial  support  of  parish  schools 
by  taxation  runs  to  the  effect  that  these  schools,  while  accom- 
plishing their  religious  purpose,  fulfil  also  the  ends  of  the  state 
by  teaching  such  subjects  as  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  etc., 
and  that  the  state  may  properly  pay  the  parochial  school  for 
teaching  these  subjects,  especially  as  Catholic  taxpayers  are  de- 
barred by  conscientious  scruples  from  using  the  public  schools. 

If  the  problem  could  be  reduced  in  reality  to  such  simple 
terms  as  buying  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge  of  this  or  that, 
it  would  be  easy  enough;  the  state  would  simply  examine  in 
certain  subjects,  and  pay  a  stipulated  amount  for  every  pupil 
who  reaches  a  prescribed  grade.     But  the  educational  purpose 


STATE  AND  CHURCH  259 

of  the  state  is  not  as  meagre  as  this.  The  state  desires  to  ex- 
press itself  to  its  children.  A  democracy  must  transcend  class 
consciousness,  must  support  and  develop  the  sense  of  human 
equality,  must  train  the  different  elements  of  the  population  to 
co-operation  by  early  habituation  of  children,  and  by  early 
awakening  a  consciousness  of  citizenship,  of  common  citizenship, 
and  of  what  it  means.  Can  a  parish  school,  which  is  a  class 
school,  accomplish  this  ?  The  very  purpose  of  a  parish  school  is, 
primarily  and  predominantly,  to  cement  together  a  particular 
group  within  the  state.  It  causes  children  of  this  group  to 
associate  with  one  another,  not  with  children  of  other  popula- 
tion-groups. And  within  this  closed  society  the  state  never 
speaks  in  its  own  person,  least  of  all  with  its  own  authority. 

It  is  an  obviously  sound  axiom  of  administration  that  wher- 
ever public  funds  go,  public  control  should  go  also.  But  a 
practicable  method  of  public  control  within  a  parish  school  has 
never  been  devised.  Nor  is  one  likely  to  be  discovered.  For 
the  teacher  in  such  a  school  is  appointed  by  and  is  answerable 
to  the  ecclesiastical  power — is  an  agent  of  this  power  and  not 
at  all  of  the  state.  The  act  of  teaching  is  here  an  act  of  the 
church,  not  the  joint  act  of  state  and  church,  nor  a  mixtm*e  or 
alternation  of  acts  first  by  the  church  and  then  by  the  state. 
There  is,  in  short,  no  sphere  within  a  parish  school  in  which 
the  state  could  act  of  its  own  authority;  it  would  be  able  to 
act  at  all  only  by  invitation,  permission,  or  compact. 

Public  appropriations  for  parish  schools  would  therefore 
mark  a  sort  of  one-sided  union  of  church  and  state,  one-sided 
because,  though  it  would  assure  the  church  of  its  sectarian  aims, 
it  would  not  assure  the  state  that  its  children  will  receive  a 
broadly  social  training.  That  any  large  number  of  citizens 
should  be  conscientiously  unable  to  use  the  public  schools 
is  deeply  to  be  regretted.  That  these  citizens  have  shown 
their  faith  by  paying,  here  and  there,  for  a  second  set  of  day 
schools  is  a  matter  for  admiration.  But  this  is  the  cost  to  them 
of  religious  conditions  that  divide  citizens  instead  of  uniting 
them.  The  public  should  not  pay  the  cost  of  that  which 
separates  citizens  from  one  another.     Not  only  so;    it  should 


260  STATE  AND  CHURCH 

be  a  settled  part  of  public  policy  to  keep  the  public  schools  so 
richly  attractive,  so  broad,  humane,  and  responsive  to  com- 
munity need,  that  they  will  continue  to  be,  but  in  growing  mea- 
sure, schools  of  the  whole  people,  the  great  mixer  and  democ- 
ratizer  of  our  heterogeneous  population. 

How  some  Protestants  would  have  religion  taught  in  the 
public  schools.  The  dissatisfaction  of  the  Catholics  touches 
the  public  school  system  as  such,  the  basal  principles  of  it. 
Protestants,  as  a  rule,  accept  these  principles,  but  there  is  con- 
siderable Protestant  unrest  over  the  way  in  which  non-sectarian- 
ism works  in  actual  practice.  Many  claim  that  the  schools  can 
teach  religion  and  yet  remain  unsectarian,  and  the  point  is 
made  again  and  again  that,  though  the  necessity  for  religious 
education  is  as  broad  as  the  nation,  the  present  provisions  for 
it  are  relatively  narrow.  In  the  first  place,  a  considerable  pro- 
portion of  the  children  receives  no  religious  instruction  at  home 
or  through  Sunday  schools.  In  the  next  place,  the  amount  of 
instruction  given  by  the  Sunday  school  to  its  pupils  is  piti- 
fully small.  In  the  third  place,  the  quality  of  the  teaching  in 
Sunday  schools  is  unsatisfactory.  Are  we  not,  then,  actually 
in  danger  of  becoming  a  non-religious  people? 

Moved  by  such  considerations,  many  Protestants  are  strenu- 
ous to  retain  or  to  introduce  Bible  reading  in  the  public  schools. 
A  smaller  number  calls  for  specific  religious  instruction  in  these 
schools.  The  nature  of  these  proposals  requires  careful 
scrutiny. 

(1)  The  ground  for  demanding  Bible  reading  in  the  schools  is 
ambiguous.  The  argument  shifts  back  and  forth  between  the 
value  of  the  Bible  as  literature,  and  its  value  for  religious 
guidance.  It  might  seem  ungracious  to  suggest  that  effort  is 
being  made  to  introduce  religious  teaching  under  the  head  of 
merely  literary  study.  Yet  one  can  hardly  help  seeing  in  the 
background  of  this  whole  agitation  the  distinctly  Protestant 
emphasis  upon  the  Bible  as  the  authoritative  word  of  God.  It  is 
unlikely  that  the  agitators  for  Bible  reading  would  be  satisfied 
to  have  the  Bible  treated  in  the  schools  exactly  like  other 
literature.    No;  a  distinctive,  unique  reverence  is  expected,  and 


STATE  AND  CHURCH  261 

even  worship  In  direct  connection  with  the  Scripture  reading. 
In  short,  it  is  proposed  to  make  the  state  schools  an  agency  for 
propagating  a  distinctly  Protestant  attitude  toward  the  au- 
thority of  the  Scriptures. 

(2)  Protestant  agitation  for  religion  in  the  scJiools  has  not 
sufficiently  considered  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  Catholic  and 
non-Catholic  versions  of  the  Bible  alike,  and  Protestant  as  well  as 
Catholic  worship,  are  coming  to  be  regarded  as  sectarian.  The 
crux  of  the  matter  is  the  CathoHc  claim  to  exclusive  religious 
authority.  This  claim  is,  of  course,  sectarianism.  But,  justly, 
or  unjustly.  Catholic  citizens  take  the  ground  that  to  deny  this 
authority,  or  even  to  practise  religion  without  recognizing  it,  ia 
also  sectarianism.  Here,  in  fact,  the  population  is  cut  in  two, 
and  the  courts,  quite  naturally,  attempt  to  keep  the  schools 
neutral  as  between  them.  Therefore  any  version  of  the  Bible 
whatever  will  have  only  a  precarious  standing  In  the  schools  if  a 
parent  chooses  to  object  to  it  as  sectarian.  The  same  is  true 
of  worship.  It  must  be  either  Catholic  or  non-Catholic,  and 
therefore  open  to  objection  from  one  side  or  the  other.  Objec- 
tion is  not  always  made,  to  be  sure.  In  communities  that  are 
fairly  homogeneous  in  religious  population,  the  schools  often 
practise  religion  and  teach  It  without  producing  friction.  But 
growth  of  a  community  in  size  and  in  heterogeneity  of  race  and 
of  religion  commonly  puts  an  end  to  the  old  acquiescence  in  a 
particular  type  of  religion  in  the  schools,  whereupon  we  face 
the  alternative  of  introducing  more  types  upon  a  plane  of  mu- 
tual equality,  or  else  of  excluding  all. 

(3)  Undue  hopes  are  entertained  as  to  the  religious  effect  of 
listening  to  the  reading  of  Bible  passages.  Again  we  hear  a  faint 
echo  of  the  old  Protestant  conviction  that  in  the  very  words  of 
the  Scriptures  God  speaks  directly  to  each  individual.  Without 
doubt  mere  listening  to  elevated  sentiments  well  phrased  has 
some  effect  upon  the  listener,  especially  if  the  words  reinforce 
something  that  the  pupil  learns  in  other  ways  also.  That  is, 
Bible  readings  might  be  significantly  fitted  into  a  genuine  plan 
for  religious  education,  and  such  readings  in  the  day  school  might 
happen  to  add  something  to  the  effectiveness  of  religious  teach- 


262  STATE  AND  CHURCH 

ing  in  home  or  in  Sunday  school.  But  of  themselves,  as  mere 
fragments,  by  chance  related  or  not  to  other  parts  of  a  system, 
they  cannot  be  regarded  as  having  the  educational  significance 
that  the  vehemence  of  the  agitation  often  seems  to  assume. 

(4)  Plans  are  lacking  for  the  preparation  of  public  school 
teachtrs  for  the  teaching  of  religion.  No  one  can  think  that  re- 
ligion can  be  taught  by  mere  words  regardless  of  the  religious 
character  and  convictions  of  the  teacher.  No  one  who  thinks 
in  educational  terms  can  suppose  that  the  effective  teaching 
of  religion  requires  no  specific  preparation  therefor.  How, 
then,  shall  we  assure  ourselves  of  the  personal  and  professional 
fitness  of  public  school  teachers  in  this  matter  ?  What  shall  be 
the  tests  ?  What  shall  the  normal  schools  add  to  their  curricu- 
lum? Merely  to  state  these  questions  is  to  expose  the  educa- 
tional shortsightedness  of  the  agitation  for  teaching  religion  in 
the  schools.  Imagine  the  state  undertaking  to  prepare,  test, 
and  supervise  teachers  of  religion  I  In  the  interest  of  religion 
itself  we  should  deny  that  the  state  is  competent  to  teach  it. 

What  a  democratic  state  can  contribute  to  a  socialized 
religious  education.  The  considerations  to  which  we  have 
just  attended  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  isolate  the  state  from 
religion,  and  to  strip  and  impoverish  the  human  spirit,  instead 
of  enriching  it,  in  the  schools.  It  would  be  so  if  religion  were 
identical  with  either  dogmatism  or  ecclesiasticism.  For  both 
are  in  their  inmost  nature  sectarian;  they  have  always  divided 
Christians  from  one  another.  If  we  should  identify  religion 
with  them  the  schools  would  have  to  be  secular  not  only  in  the 
sense  already  defined  (that  is,  that  they  leave  the  organization 
of  religion  altogether  to  private  initiative),  but  also  in  the  sense 
that  state  education  and  religious  education  would  pursue 
divergent  rather  than  convergent  aims.  The  schools,  giving 
ultimate  value  to  the  broadly  human,  would  have  a  tendency 
to  promote  a  secularistic  life  in  distinction  from  the  religious 
life  as  thus  conceived.  But  nothing  of  the  kind  will  be  implied 
if  we  advance  from  dogmatic  and  ecclesiastical  standpoints  in 
religious  education  to  a  fully  social  position.  When  we  bring 
religious  education  under  the  conception  of  the  democracy  of 


STATE  AND  CHURCH  263. 

God,  we  have  a  socially  unifying  aim  to  which  everything  that 
is  truly  democratizing  and  humanizing  in  state  education  con- 
tributes. For  example,  a  public  school  that  causes  pupils  of 
several  racial  groups  to  mingle  with  one  another  as  neighbors, 
and  to  realize  their  unity  in  a  common  devotion  to  the  flag  as 
a  symbol  of  liberty,  promotes  thereby  the  precise  aims  that 
socialized  religion  would  have  in  a  similar  situation.  In  a 
certain  school  upon  the  Pacific  coast  the  pupils  of  Caucasian 
extraction,  though  their  daily  life  is  surrounded  by  prejudice 
against  Mongolians,  have  become  convinced  disciples  of  equal 
opportunity  for  Chinese  pupils,  and  have  even  become  protec- 
tors of  Chinese  children  against  aggression  from  "Americans." 
If  an  exactly  parallel  phenomenon  were  to  occur  in  a  Sunday 
school  we  should  spontaneously  think  of  it  as  a  triumph  of 
Christian  education. 

The  interest  of  a  socialized  religious  education  in  the  public 
schools  is  not  that  they  should  teach  religion  in  addition  to  read- 
ing, writing,  and  arithmetic,  but  that  they  should  teach  de-  j 
mocracy,  and  that  they  should  do  it  thoroughly.  To  "teach'*"" 
democracy,  it  need  hardly  be  argued  at  this  stage  of  our  dis- 
cussion, means  to  develop  intelligent  democratic  attitudes, 
activities,  habits,  and  purposes — in  short,  to  make  the  pupils 
democrats. 

Here  lies  the  acutest  part  of  the  problem  of  moral  instruction 
and  training  in  the  public  schools.  Real  educators  are  chary 
of  proposals  to  "introduce  moral  education"  into  the  schools. 
It  is  there  already  in  every  piece  of  work  that  the  pupils  are  led 
to  do  thoroughly;  it  is  there  in  everything  that  produces  loyalty 
to  the  reasonable  rules  of  the  school ;  it  is  there  in  the  co-opera- 
tive life  of  schoolroom  and  playground;  it  is  there  in  customs 
and  measures  that  make  for  community  consciousness  and  for 
political  idealism — it  cannot  be  introduced,  it  can  only  be  im- 
proved. The  improvement  for  which  we  most  need  to  strive, 
about  which  anxiety  is  most'nearly  justified,  concerns,  not  a  set 
of  standard  virtues  that  are  the  same  under  tyranny  and  under 
liberty,  but  measures  for  leading  pupils  to  have  as  their  own  the 
great  purposes  of  democracy,  which  are  not  only  humane,  but 


264  STATE  AND  CHURCH 

also  constructive  and  aggressive.  The  problem  of  morals  in  the 
schools  melts  into  the  problem  of  creating  ambition  for  a  sort 
of  society  that  is  partly  prefigured  in  our  historic  national 
ideals,  but  is  still  for  the  most  part  unachieved.  Give  us  public 
schools  that  develop  active  interest  in  human  welfare,  passion 
for  the  basal  rights  of  man  as  man,  faith  in  the  capacity  of  men 
for  unselfishness,  and  the  habit  and  purpose  of  co-operation — 
give  us  public  schools  like  these,  and  social  religion  will  look 
upon  them  as  doing  God's  will  even  though  they  do  not  name 
his  name,  but  only  that  of  his  children. 

The  appropriate  policy  for  socialized  religion  with  respect  to 
the  state  schools,  then,  is  neither  to  curb  their  influence  be- 
cause they  are  secular,  nor  to  induce  them  to  take  over  worship 
or  instruction  in  religion  as  such,  but  to  get  them  to  realize  more 
and  more  the  possibilities  of  government  of  the  whole  people, 
by  the  whole  people,  and  for  the  whole  people,  and  to  provide 
ever  better  and  better  training  of  intelligence  and  of  will  with 
reference  thereto.  Ultimately  all  the  schools  may  be  expected 
to  provide,  as  some  do  now,  training  in  both  remedial  and  pre- 
ventive philanthropy.  In  addition  they  will  become  nurseries 
of  political  progress,  not  indeed  by  being  tools  of  political  par- 
ties, but  by  constantly  recalling  attention  to  the  human  values 
that  furnish  the  only  ground  for  the  real  settlement  of  political 
questions. 

The  specific  educational  functions  of  free  religion  in 
a  free  state.  To  organized  religion  there  will  remain  the  edu- 
cational privilege  of  inclusiveness  and  of  prophecy.  How  long 
states  will  assume  that  national  selfishness  and  self-will  are 
politically  legitimate,  no  one  can  say,  but  as  long  as  they  do,  as 
long  as  the  sociality  of  the  state  is  arbitrarily  limited  to  a  race 
or  to  a  territory,  religious  education  will  have  the  function  of 
humanizing  the  state.  In  the  name  of  the  God  of  the  whole 
earth,  who  is  the  Father  of  all  men,  the  church  must  reveal  the 
large  sociality  that  takes  in  the  self-governing  state  but  tran- 
scends it. 

Just  so,  the  great  social  problems  of  individual  destiny,  the 
destiny  of  friendship  and  love,  and  the  destiny  of  the  race  it- 


STATE   AND   CHURCH  265 

self — problems  of  the  meaning  of  life  that  call  for  the  unflinch- 
ing eye  and  the  resolute  heart — will  remain  to  the  churches  as 
voluntary  associations.  There  are  depths  of  human  need  that 
the  state  does  not  undertake  to  sound.  There  are  valleys  of 
experience  for  which  it  provides  no  companion  or  guide.  There 
are  heights  of  self-sacrifice  to  which  it  does  not  venture  to  point. 

Through  every  social  problem,  moreover,  whether  it  falls 
under  the  purview  of  the  state  school  or  not,  there  runs  the  com- 
mon human  need  for  inspiration,  for  the  divine  inbreathing  of 
hope,  for  uncompromising  love,  for  far-sight,  for  letting  go  the 
half-gods  in  a  great  and  ultimate  faith  in  Fatherhood  and 
Brotherhood. 

To  the  churches  that  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  this  educa- 
tional horizon  falls  the  task  of  experimenting  and  agitating 
with  a  view  to  a  permanent  system  of  democratic  religious  in- 
struction and  training  for  the  children  of  the  whole  nation.  Re- 
ligious education  for  the  whole  people  must  be  provided  by  the 
churches  at  their  own  expense.  Buildings,  equipment,  trained 
teachers,  scientific  supervision — all  these  must  be  had.  No 
mere  spurt  or  spasm  will  accomplish  all  this;  we  must  enter 
upon  a  long  campaign,  only  the  beginnings  of  which  we  our- 
selves can  live  to  see.  The  campaign  will  be  expensive  in  point 
of  financial  cost,  of  loyal  labor  for  a  distant  goal,  of  hard  study 
and  patient  experiment,  of  disappointments,  of  deferred  hopes, 
of  strains  between  friends.  But  no  one  who  knows  the  genius 
of  the  Christian  religion  will  imagine  that  the  love  that  loves 
to  the  uttermost  can  be  otherwise  than  costly  either  to  God  or 
to  those  who  would  be  godlike. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT   OF 
RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

The  emergence  of  religious  education  within  denomina- 
tional consciousness.  The  fact  that  Sunday  schools  are  uni- 
versal in  a  denomination,  or  that  improvements  in  them  are 
actively  labored  for,  does  not  of  itself  prove  the  presence  of  the 
idea  of  religious  education  in  the  denominational  consciousness, 
much  less  of  thought-out  standards  and  policies  for  education 
as  distinguished  from  other  operations.  As  long  as  Sunday 
school  teaching  is  controlled  by  the  tacit  assumption  that  it  is 
a  branch  of  expository  preaching  or  of  evangelistic  appeal,  there 
is  little  about  it  that  is  distinctive  of  education.  Under  these 
conditions  such  a  simple,  rudimentary  educational  process  as 
habit-formation — to  take  a  single  example — is  scarcely  under- 
taken at  all.  Habits  may  be  talked  about,  exhortations  about 
them  may  be  plentiful,  but  the  actual  habit-forming  process  is 
not  under  conscious  control.  This  example  may  stand  for 
many  facts.  The  Sunday  school,  under  these  conditions,  is  a 
school  chiefly  in  a  germinal  sense,  practically  all  that  is  specifi- 
cally and  technically  educational  not  yet  having  come  to  clear 
consciousness. 

The  lack  of  denominational  educational  consciousness  in  the 
immediate  past  is  revealed  and  typified  by  the  fact  that  in 
several  large  denominations  the  functions  of  a  department  of 
religious  education  are  only  now  being  differentiated  from  those 
of  a  denominational  publishing  house  or  society.  That  a  de- 
nomination should  have  educational  principles  and  policy; 
that  the  duty  of  carrying  them  into  the  whole  denominational 
life  should  be  committed  to  a  corps  of  educational  specialists; 
and  that  the  Sunday-school  publications  should  become  organs 

266 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT       267 

for  such  principles  and  policy  under  the  guidance  of  these 
specialists — this  is  new  to  the  old-line  publisher,  and  it  is  new  to 
the  Sunday  schools  that  are  his  patrons. 

As  each  of  our  cities  has  a  department  of  education  that 
is  not  confused,  say,  with  the  police  department,  or  with  the 
street  department,  and  as  every  enlightened  board  of  education 
seeks  the  services  of  an  expert  educator  as  superintendent  of 
schools,  so  the  unmistakable  trend  in  the  religious  denominations 
is  toward  a  distinct  educational  consciousness  expressed  in  a 
department  that  employs  expert  and  technical  service.  The 
idea  of  the  "technical,"  with  its  basis  in  the  "scientific,"  has 
come  only  slowly,  it  is  true,  into  control  even  of  the  public 
schools;  in  many  parts  of  the  country  it  has  not  yet  arrived  at 
clear  consciousness,  but  is  subordinated  to  office-holding  de- 
signs, or  to  ignorant  economy.  We  must  not  be  surprised  when 
we  meet  like  inertia  in  the  churches.  Official  positions  and 
financial  costs  will  create  problems  and  difficulties.  But  al- 
ready the  movement  of  specializing  toward  the  expert  and  the 
technical  has  begun  on  a  denominational  scale  in  several  of  the 
bodies.  We  may  confidently  expect  that  advances  in  religious 
education  will  be  made  in  the  future  not  merely  school  by 
school,  but  also  denomination  by  denomination,  thousands  of 
schools  going  forward  simultaneously. 

Unifying  the  educational  work  of  a  denomination.  A  sure 
sign  of  the  infancy  of  educational  consciousness  on  the  denom- 
inational scale  is  our  habit  of  identifying  departments  of  re- 
ligious education  with  departments  of  Sunday  schools.  What, 
then,  of  young  people's  societies  and  other  organizations  of  the 
young,  and  what  of  denominational  academies  and  colleges? 
The  purpose  of  all  these,  as  far  as  it  is  defined  at  all,  is  educa- 
tional in  a  broad,  if  not  a  technical,  sense.  The  specific  ground 
of  their  existence  is  expectation  of  religious  results.  But  clarity 
of  purpose,  policies  appropriate  to  the  purpose,  and  efficiency  in 
executing  it,  have  been  generally  lacking.  We  have  already 
noticed  the  waste  in  local  societies  through  overlapping,  dupli- 
cating, and  scattering.  This  evil  could  be  cured  through  whole 
denominations  if  they  had  a  unified  educational  department. 


268      THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

That  the  general  board  of  a  young  people's  society  should  be  an 
independent  department  of  a  denomination,  or  even  an  outside 
body  without  responsibility  to  the  educational  authorities  of 
the  denomination,  is  as  anomalous  as  would  be,  in  the  public 
schools,  a  department  of  physical  culture  that  is  not  responsible 
to  the  superintendent  of  schools  or  to  the  board  of  education. 

As  to  denominational  academies  and  colleges,  it  is  not  unfair 
to  say  that,  though  they  are  interested  in  both  education  and 
religion,  they  have  rarely  conceived  of  education  in  religion  as 
their  central  function  and  the  reason  for  their  existence.  There 
has  been  lack  of  a  definite  conception  of  religious  education  as 
a  specialized  undertaking  based  upon  laws  of  growth  and  there- 
fore requiring  both  continuity  and  technical  care.  Adminis- 
trators who  sincerely  desire  to  promote  Christian  character 
have  believed  in  technical  proficiency  and  continuity  anywhere 
but  here,  and  they  have  rarely  been  ready  to  pay  the  cost  of 
it.  Instead,  they  have  added  inexpensive  non-educational 
rehgion  to  expensive  non-religious  education.  The  most  usual 
methods  of  doing  this  are  the  maintenance  of  unsystematized, 
discontinuous  preaching;  supporting  either  shoddy  Bible  study 
because  of  its  religiousness,  or  a  sound  department  of  Bible 
under  the  supposition  that  instruction  in  the  Scriptures  is  re- 
ligious instruction  or  even  rehgious  education;  transferring  the 
religious  functions  of  the  institution  to  student  Christian 
associations,  with  their  immature  leadership;  and  resorting 
to  occasionalistic,  high-pressure  revival  meetings. 

One  element  in  the  situation  is,  of  course,  the  increasing 
difficulty  of  meeting  the  educational  standards  of  state  institu- 
tions. Into  new  courses,  new  buildings,  and  new  laboratory 
equipment,  money  and  thought  have  been  forced  to  go.  Relig- 
ion has  had  no  like  force  that  it  could  bring  to  bear  upon 
administrators.  Hence  it  has  tended  to  become,  as  far  as 
administration  is  concerned,  an  appendage  of  education,  or  an 
accompaniment  of  it,  and  not  a  too  expensive  one. 

A  final  reason  why  the  educational  resources  of  each  de- 
nomination have  not  been  unified  into  a  scheme  of  religious 
education  is   the   inherent   difficulty   of   constructing  such   a 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT       2G9 

scheme  upon  the  basis  of  a  pre-soclal  interpretation  of  the 
Christian  religion.  How  can  a  college  that  awakens  its  students 
to  the  liberty  of  science  advise  the  same  students  at  the  same 
time  to  take  the  intellectual  attitudes  of  dogmatic  religion? 
How  can  a  college  that  opens  the  eyes  of  its  students  to  law  and 
growth  and  continuity  in  nature,  in  history,  and  in  the  mind  of 
man,  represent  the  religious  experience  as  a  separate,  indepen- 
dent, and  discontinuous  thing?  If  an  attempt  is  made  to  cul- 
tivate both,  it  is  practically  certain  that  two  different  sets  of 
men  will  do  the  cultivating,  that  the  religious  work  will  be  set 
off  by  itself  and  isolated,  and  that  the  religious  appeal  will 
tend  toward  occasionalism  and  toward  emotions  split  off  from 
academic  interests. 

But  when  the  Christian  religion  is  conceived  as  the  purpose 
to  co-operate  with  God  in  building  democracy,  it  offers  a  uni- 
fying and  organizing,  not  dividing,  principle  for  education. 
All  the  legitimate  work  of  a  college  can  be  brought  under  this 
purpose.  All  of  it  will  be  vivified  when  it  receives  this  baptism. 
The  dawdling  of  students  in  our  colleges;  the  childishness  that 
clings  to  them  after  they  have  become  grown  men  and  women; 
the  dilettanteism  of  alumni  associations;  the  lack  of  positive 
content  in  college  loyalty;  the  administrative  drifting,  and  the 
atrophy  of  social  will  in  the  professor's  marooned  specialty — 
this  is  our  academic  tragedy.  This  is  the  educational  worldli- 
ness  from  which  we  must  be  converted. 

Here  is  the  unique  opportunity  of  the  college  that  is  willing 
as  an  institution  to  confess  Christ.  Let  it  conceive  its  whole 
mission  in  terms  of  the  democracy  of  God.  Let  it  test  its  cur- 
riculum, its  administration,  its  budget,  its  alumni  by  their  con- 
tributions to  social  welfare,  social  justice,  and  world  society. 
Let  it  dare  to  be  different  from  other  colleges  by  having  a  focal- 
ized social  purpose,  whereas  their  purposes  are  dispersed  and 
foggy.  Let  it  consciously  serve  a  cause,  a  radical  cause  that 
appeals  to  the  idealism  of  youth.  And  in  all  this  let  it  not 
assign  God  to  any  compartment  of  the  mind,  but  assuming  that 
"where  love  is  God  is,"  let  it  teach  its  students  to  find  com- 
munion with  him  precisely  in  social  relations  with  men,  in  the 


270       THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

social  task,  In  all  the  study  that  prepares  for  it,  and  in  the  in- 
spiration that  impels  to  it. 

One  can  imagine  the  entire  educational  machinery  of  a  de- 
nomination coming  under  the  control  of  this  unifying  purpose. 
One  would  then  behold  a  sight  as  inspiring  as  it  would  be  new — 
the  Sunday  school,  the  societies,  the  academies,  and  the  colleges 
all  marching  together  toward  a  single  goal.  What  an  immea- 
surable, unprecedented  contribution  to  society  would  accrue 
if  even  one  Christian  body  should  thus  organize  its  educational 
powers.  But  to  do  it  an  educational  department  would  be 
necessary,  a  department  that  could  command  the  services  of 
experimenters,  writers,  editors,  promoters,  and  administrators; 
that  could  have  access  to  all  the  educational  agencies  of  the 
denomination,  and  that  could  be  to  each  of  them  a  medium 
of  denominational  stimulus  and  of  denominational  support. 

Producing  teachers  and  leaders.  In  a  denominational  policy 
like  this  nothing  is  more  vital  than  to  provide  real  educators, 
and  nothing  is  more  difficult.  For  the  push  is  toward  specializa- 
tion, the  technical,  the  ascertainably  efficient,  not  toward  mere 
proclamation,  exhortation,  or  agitation,  which  are  far  easier. 
The  task  that  is  before  us  is  nothing  less  than  to  provide  a  con- 
tinuous supply  of  skilled  workers  through  the  whole  depart- 
ment, from  the  humblest  lay  teacher  in  a  Sunday  school  to  the 
corps  of  professional  experts  who  guide  the  entire  denomina- 
tion. 

(1)  Training  the  unpaid  lay  workers  in  the  parish.  "Teacher 
training *'  is  too  narrow  a  term  for  what  is  here  intended.  For 
officers  of  a  Sunday  school,  as  well  as  teachers,  require  help. 
Nor  is  the  Sunday  school  all.  The  church  school  must  include, 
as  we  have  seen,  all  the  work  for  children  and  youth,  and  there- 
fore the  work  of  parents  and  of  various  leaders  of  groups. 
Hence,  the  training  division  or  department  of  the  school  will 
touch  perhaps  the  major  part  of  the  adult  active  members  of  the 
parish.  To  suggest  that  this  mass  of  laymen  should  be  trained 
by  the  church  for  genuine  skill  as  educators  will  perhaps  cause 
some  persons  to  smile  at  the  visionariness  of  the  proposal,  and 
others  to  frown  in  dismay  at  the  crushing  responsibilities  that 
would  fall  upon  church  administrators.     I  have  no  desire  to 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT      271 

concecal  the  degree  to  which  church  Hfe  will  have  to  be  triins- 
formed  if  this  vision  is  to  be  realized.  Sunday  and  week-day 
meetings  to  which  church  members  are  now  invited  for  their 
own  spiritual  refreshment  will  to  a  large  extent  be  converted 
into  periods  for  instruction  and  drill  in  the  specific  duties  of 
church  workers.  Instead  of  "attending  the  church  service,'* 
one  will  give  the  church  service,  and  study  how  to  give  the  best. 
Worship,  as  a  result,  will  have  more  point,  and  more  firm 
attachment  to  daily  living.  The  desultoriness  of  miscellaneous 
sermonizing,  too,  will  give  place  to  continuity,  system,  and  the 
urgency  of  immediate  needs. 

To  convert  a  listening  church  into  a  working  church  is  not  the 
matter  of  a  day  or  of  a  season  but  of  a  generation.  Many  an 
experiment  must  be  made,  not  every  one  of  which  will  succeed. 
Advance  will  not  be  steady  or  even  all  along  the  line.  We 
must  use  half-measures  as  a  means  to  better  ones.  We  must 
honor  any  layman's  best,  however  imperfect  it  may  be.  But, 
granted  this  spirit  of  tolerant,  patient  practicality,  a  policy  of 
constant  pressure  toward  skilled  churchmanship  will  in  one 
generation  produce  a  new  type  of  churchman. 

The  content  and  the  methods  of  training  courses  for  different 
sorts  of  lay  workers  in  religious  education  cannot  here  be  dis- 
cussed in  any  detail.  The  most  that  is  permitted  is  a  hint  or 
two  as  to  some  fundamental  conditions  of  efficiency. 

First,  The  possibility  of  developing  a  body  of  skilled  non- 
professional religious  educators  grows  out  of  the  fact  that 
both  the  motive  for  study  and  the  material  that  most  needs  to 
be  studied  lie  within  the  sphere  of  the  domestic  instincts,  par- 
ticularly the  parental.  Between  instinctive  fondness  for 
children  and  Christian  love  for  mankind  there  is  entire  con- 
tinuity. Training  in  the  motive  to  teach,  then — and  this  is  the 
corner-stone  of  the  whole  enterprise — will  consist  in  bringing 
the  parental  instinct  into  action,  whether  one  is  a  parent  or 
not,  and  in  developing  instinctive  attachments  into  an  intelli- 
gent Christian  purpose  to  transform  society  into  a  family  of  God. 
Stated  in  another  way,  the  basis  of  the  best  training  is  the  in- 
telligent focussmg  of  one's  Christian  experience  upon  the  social 
will  of  God  as  it  applies  to  children  and  youth. 


272      THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

Second,  This  experience  of  God  in  an  intelligently  develop- 
ing fondness  for  children  is  to  be  had  primarily  through  one's 
own  interactions  with  particular  children,  not  through  child- 
study  generalizations  made  by  other  persons.  The  material  for 
study  is  first  of  all  living  beings,  and  only  secondarily  books. 

Many  a  training  class,  reversing  this  order,  has  gotten  as 
far  as  the  book,  and  then  stopped.  Labor  was  put  upon  defini- 
tions and  laws  under  the  supposition  that  somehow  the  knowl- 
edge of  them  would  constitute  knowledge  of  children,  but  in  the 
end  these  formulse  did  not  even  introduce  the  student  to  real 
children,  but  remained  mere  lumber  in  the  attic  of  the  mind. 
No;  observation  of  children  is  fundamental.  It  needs  to  be 
guided,  of  course,  for  the  most  effective  observation,  as  has 
been  said,  is  that  which  puts  definite  questions  to  nature.  But 
in  this  case  the  questions  that  most  need  to  be  asked  are  not 
the  critically  analytical  ones  of  the  theoretical  psychologist 
(such  as  the  precise  number  and  the  classification  of  the  instincts, 
the  precise  nature  of  imitation,  or  the  part  played  by  motile 
images  in  the  growth  of  intelligence),  but  broader  questions  as 
to  children's  conduct,  particularly  how  they  act  in  given  social 
situations.  For  the  objective  point  throughout  is  to  be  able  to 
make  such  changes  in  social  situations  as  will  produce  desired 
changes  in  children's  social  attitudes,  purposes,  and  habits. 
Not  that  we  need  to  be  shy  of  academic  generalizations,  but 
that  we  should  follow  the  rule  of  good  teaching  that  formulse 
are  to  be  brought  in  when  the  pupil  already  has  something  that 
needs  formulating.  The  end  of  our  teaching  in  the  training 
class,  moreover,  is  not  the  achievement  of  a  sound  generaliza- 
tion, as  it  is  in  much  academic  teaching,  but  ability  to  regulate 
the  social  relations  of  children  so  as  to  get  certain  social  results. 
Of  course  the  professional  educators  who  are  back  of  this  train- 
ing of  laymen  will  control  their  own  thinking  in  some  measure 
by  finer  distinctions  and  more  details  of  a  technical  kind,  but 
what  the  rank  and  file  of  the  lay  educators  require  is  the  more 
homespun  sort  of  wisdom. 

Third,  In  accordance  with  the  well-worn  maxim  that  we  learn 
by  doing,  practice  in  educational  processes  or  part-processes 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT       273 

is  fundamental  in  the  training  of  lay  educators.  We  must  rid 
our  constituency  of  the  naive  superstition  that  teacher  training 
consists  in  laying  in  a  stock  of  ideas  about  teaching.  Ideas 
are,  of  course,  essential  to  skill,  which  is  ability  to  get  a  specific 
result  by  means  of  knowledge.  But  skill  is  achieved  by  the 
fusion  of  doing  and  thinking  into  one.  Training  for  the  church- 
school  worker,  then,  will  not  be  isolated  from  the  actual  work 
of  the  school.  The  school  itself  will  be  his  immediate  object 
of  study,  and  his  relation  to  it  as  a  student  will  be  that  of  an 
apprentice.  Observation  and  practice,  then,  which  we  may  call 
the  laboratory  method,  will  assume  the  primacy  that  the  text- 
book now  holds. 

Fourth,  The  fallacy  of  outline  courses  must  be  exposed  and 
abandoned;  that  is,  the  attempt  to  cover  a  wide  area  in  a  short 
time  by  making  the  instruction  very  thin.  This  is  not  the  way 
to  gain  even  abstract  knowledge,  much  less  to  gain  skill. 
"One  thing  at  a  time,  and  this  done  well."  The  acquisition  of 
firm  control  in  a  single  process  is  not  only  important  in  itself; 
it  has  also  an  outreaching  influence.  It  is  almost  fascinating 
to  witness  the  general  transformation  in  the  attitude  of  a  teacher 
who,  having  conquered  his  faults  in  a  particular  process,  now 
knows  that  he  can  deliberately  get  the  results  that  he  aims  at. 
Such  an  experience  carries  a  teacher  a  hundred  times  further 
toward  general  skill  than  committing  to  memory  abstract  formu- 
lae for  the  whole  of  good  teaching. 

Therefore,  if  the  time  available  for  training  during  any  one 
season  happens  to  be  short,  we  must  not  on  this  account  dilute 
the  contents  of  the  course.  Whether  the  time  be  long  or  short, 
let  the  work  be  intensive,  and  let  the  standard  be  demonstrated 
improvement  in  some  actual  educational  process,  whether  story- 
telling, preparing  lesson  plans  or  schemes  of  questioning,  keep- 
ing records,  making  reports,  conducting  worship,  teaching  one's 
own  child  his  first  prayer,  or  merely  discovering  the  cause  of 
inattention  on  a  particular  occasion. 

(2)  The  opportunity  of  the  college  to  produce  lay  leaders  of  parish 
education.  Granted  the  social  view  of  collegiate  education,  as 
outlined  in  a  preceding  section,  there  are  three  points  at  which 


274      THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

the  college  may  be  expected  to  touch  the  problem  of  religious 
education  in  a  positive  way.  First,  the  college  will  promote 
by  educational  methods  the  immediate  religious  growth  of  its 
students.  Second,  it  will  include  in  its  curriculum  a  study  of 
the  church  as  a  social  institution.  This  study  will  concern 
both  the  aims  and  the  methods  of  a  socialized  church,  and  its 
general  result  will  be  to  send  the  students  back  to  their  home 
churches  qualified  to  support  progressive  measures,  and  to  in- 
itiate and  lead  them.  Third,  this  elementary  study  of  the  church 
will  awaken  some  of  the  students  to  the  possibilities  and  the 
attractions  of  the  ministry  as  a  life-work,  professional  specializa- 
tion in  religious  education  being  included.  Though  a  college 
offers  no  specifically  professional  training,  it  may  nevertheless 
perform  the  extremely  important  service  of  a  selective  agency 
for  the  ministry.  Such  colleges,  however,  as  offer  professional 
training  in  preparation  for  high  school  teaching  may  not  un- 
reasonably be  asked  to  lay  the  foundations  for  the  profession  of 
religious  education  also. 

Postponing  for  a  moment  the  problems  of  professional  train- 
ing for  religious  education,  however,  let  us  glance  at  the  possi- 
bilities suggested  under  the  second  of  the  just-mentioned  heads. 
There  is  a  common  complaint  that  college  experience,  even 
high  school  experience,  not  only  does  not  increase  the  loyalty  of 
young  people  to  the  church  but  actually  cools  their  ardor.  The 
usual  interpretation  of  this  cooling  process  is  that  the  intellec- 
tual life  has  been  cultivated  at  the  expense  of  the  religious 
life.  The  remedy  that  is  usually  offered,  accordingly,  is  the 
cultivation  of  a  personal  religious  life  alongside  the  intellectual 
life. 

Underlying  this  prescription  and  the  diagnosis  that  precedes 
it  are  several  assumptions  that  require  scrutiny.  On  what 
ground  can  we  assert  that  the  churches,  as  they  now  are,  fur- 
nish the  one  natural  sphere  for  the  religious  life  of  educated  men 
and  women?  Is  it  certain,  then,  that  growing  indifference  to 
his  church  on  the  part  of  a  collegian  connotes  decline  in  his 
personal  religion  ?  Is  it  not  just  possible  that  some  part  of  the 
difficulty  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  while  his  religious  outlook 


THE  DENOMINATIONxVL  DEPARTMENT       275 

widens  and  his  religious  capacities  Increase,  the  church  seems  to 
him  to  be  static  ?  What  does  the  church  do  to  show  him  that 
it  is  not  so?  What  assurance  have  we  that  students  really 
understand  what  the  church  is  and  does?  Should  we  expect 
them  to  come  back  to  their  home  churches  to  repeat  over  and 
over  the  things  that  they  did  when  they  were  just  emerging 
from  childhood?  If  not,  what  church  work  is  there  that  calls 
for  the  collegian's  trained  powers,  and  how  can  he  learn  what 
this  work  is  and  what  it  requires  ? 

The  answer  to  these  doubts  is  this :  First,  a  large  part  of  the 
trouble  grows  out  of  the  student's  sheer  Ignorance  of  the 
churches,  neither  the  churches  nor  the  college  having  provided 
him  with  the  information  that  his  growing  mind  requires. 
Rather,  when  he  famishes  for  information  he  is  given  exhorta- 
tion. Second,  least  of  all  has  the  college  or  the  church  revealed 
to  him  the  place  and  the  possibilities  of  the  church  as  a  social 
institution  that  has  a  contribution  to  make  to  the  general  social 
movement.  Third,  personal  religious  life  has  been  cultivated 
too  much  upon  the  plane  of  Individual  status,  and  not  enough 
upon  the  plane  of  a  social  purpose  held  In  common.  A  purpose 
to  build  a  democracy  of  God,  rather  than  dogma  or  emotional 
experiences,  should  be  the  basis  of  religious  fellowship  In  the 
college.  Fourth,  the  particular  church  work  In  which  by  far 
the  largest  number  of  laymen  is  systematically  engaged,  namely, 
religious  education,  calls  most  naturally  for  educated  leader- 
ship, yet  the  college  student.  Instead  of  having  his  eyes  opened 
to  the  nature  of  religious  education  and  to  the  possibility  of 
skilful  service  In  It,  Is  allowed  to  think  of  It  in  terms  of  the  poor 
teaching  that  he  himself  received  in  the  Sunday  school  when 
he  was  a  child. 

The  obvious  way  to  deepen  the  religious  life  and  the  church 
loyalty  of  college  students,  then,  is  to  give  them  opportunity 
to  study  religion  as  social  purpose,  the  church  as  an  instrument 
of  possible  social  advance,  and  religious  education  as  an  oppor- 
tunity for  educated  laymen  to  help  transform  the  church  it- 
self I  At  the  present  moment  our  real  problem  Is  less  that  of 
adjusting  the  student  to  the  church  than  that  of  opening  in  the 


276      THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

church  a  highway  for  the  social  aspirations  that  are  already 
present  in  the  minds  of  the  thoughtful. 

There  are  the  best  of  academic  reasons  why  a  course  on  church 
life  or  on  religious  education  should  include  not  only  general 
principles,  but  also  sufficient  details  of  process  to  enable  the 
student  to  judge  a  specimen  of  teaching  and  to  begin  teaching. 
If  the  college  of  yesterday  cherished  the  notion  that  close  con- 
tact with  particular  facts  is  non-essential  if  only  generalizations 
are  well  defined,  the  college  of  to-day  assumes  that,  even  in  the 
interest  of  a  vital  grasp  of  general  principles  themselves,  speci- 
men facts,  at  least,  need  to  be  observed  and  analyzed  by  the 
student  himself,  not  merely  described  by  the  professor  or  by 
the  text-book.  Therefore  a  consciously  close  relation  of  a  col- 
lege study  to  a  life  purpose  or  a  foreseen  duty  reinforces  the 
study  itself.  Hence,  collegiate  study  of  religious  education 
should  make  the  student  acquainted  with  the  actual  materials 
used  in  the  church  school,  with  the  actual  processes  employed, 
with  the  actual  problems  of  administration.  He  should  see 
them  all  with  eyes  that  are  wide  open  to  the  great  social  princi- 
ples that  are  involved,  and  to  the  general  underlying  laws  of 
teaching.  That  is,  the  best  college  teaching  of  religious  educa- 
tion, even  if  no  specific  professional  training  is  undertaken,  will 
nevertheless  prepare  the  student  to  be  a  leader  in  the  actual 
educational  work  of  the  church. 

That  insight  into  the  principles  and  the  methods  of  a  social- 
ized religious  education  will  bring  inspiration  to  do  the  work 
itself,  let  no  one  doubt.  Our  idealistic  young  people  bless  us 
when  we  show  them  a  way  in  which  to  make  idealism  effective. 
The  hard  part  of  the  problem  is  not  with  them,  but  with  college 
administration  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  church  administration 
on  the  other.  Without  uncharitableness,  and  without  blame 
for  limitations  for  which  historical  excuses  can  be  made,  we 
may  say  that  the  inertia  of  institutionaHsm  in  the  administra- 
tion of  both  college  and  church  is  the  chief  obstacle  that  stands 
in  the  way  of  a  supply  of  lay  leaders  in  religious  education. 
There  are  notable  instances  of  colleges  that  have  already  be- 
gun to  follow  the  gleam,  but  many  are  faltering,  compromising. 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT       277 

or  delaying.  Too  many  of  our  college  authorities  have  not  half 
freed  themselves  from  the  pre-social  view  of  the  functions  of  a 
college.  Most  administrative  officers  are  half  paralyzed  by  the 
sleeping  sickness  of  educational  conventionality.  Even  relig- 
ious colleges  have  not  taken  pains  to  relieve  the  individualistic 
squint  with  which  students  interpret  to  themselves  the  meaning 
of  the  Christian  religion.  Otherwise  more,  many  more,  of  the 
colleges  would  be  eager,  would  vie  with  one  another,  to  intro- 
duce students  to  such  an  intensive  study  of  religion  and  of  the 
church  as  would  produce  intelligent  and  aggressive  laymen. 

On  the  other  hand,  what  is  more  certain  to  rob  the  church  of 
skilled  lay  service  than  the  discovery  on  the  part  of  collegians 
that  their  minister  is  cold  toward  their  progressive  ideas,  their 
fresh  enthusiasms,  their  discontent  w^ith  things  as  they  are, 
and  warm  only  toward  repetition  of  things  as  they  have  been? 
There  are  ministers,  and  the  number  is  growing,  who  really 
lead  their  people  forward  and  not  merely  'round  and  'round  a 
circle.  But  there  are  others  who  neither  lead  forward  nor  sup- 
port laymen  who  are  willing  to  take  burdens  of  leadership  upon 
themselves.  Concerning  these  ministers  the  greatness  of  the 
cause  calls  for  plain  speaking.  I  speak  not  of  hypothetical  possi- 
bilities but  of  repeated  occurrences  when  I  say  that  it  is  folly, 
if  it  is  not  treason  to  the  church,  for  a  minister  so  to  receive  a 
young  collegian  w^ho  is  eager  to  take  part  in  aggressive  religion 
as  to  make  him  feel  isolated,  not  understood,  suspected  of  being 
"  unspiritual,"  religiously  suppressed.  It  should  be  regarded 
as  a  clerical  scandal  for  a  minister  to  discourage  such  reforms  in 
the  Sunday  school  as  are  universally  approved  by  competent 
authorities.  If  we  can  excuse  in  the  aged  some  inability  to 
desire  change,  we  can  also  retire  the  aged  from  leadership. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  minister  who,  before  the  age  for 
retirement  comes,  will  neither  take  the  trouble  to  become  a 
competent  leader  in  parish  education,  nor  seek  out  competent 
leaders,  nor  welcome  the  services  of  those  who,  having  caught 
a  vision  of  better  things,  desire  opportunity  to  serve  ? 

(3)  Producing  professional  workers  in  religious  education. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  unpaid  parish  workers  whom  we  have 


278      THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

thus  far  considered  must  have  guidance  from  professional 
leaders,  that  is,  those  who  receive  pay  for  their  service  on  the 
ground  of  its  expert  quality  and  on  the  ground  of  the  time, 
labor,  and  expense  required  to  become  and  to  remain  an  expert. 
The  term  "expert"  must  be  interpreted  liberally.  In  the  in- 
fancy of  the  reform  of  religious  education  it  cannot  mean  the 
finished  craftsman,  but  only  the  one  who,  using  such  oppor- 
tunities for  study  and  for  experience  as  actually  exist,  is  more 
ready  than  others  to  make  wise  experiments  in  reconstruction. 
In  this  class  we  must  place,  or  be  able  to  place,  the  pastor,  the 
parish  director  of  religious  education,  the  employed  lay  parish 
worker,  the  writers  and  editors  of  lessons  and  of  material  for 
teachers,  the  secretarial  force  of  the  denomination's  central 
department  of  religious  education,  and  teachers  of  religious 
education  in  colleges,  theological  seminaries,  and  training- 
schools  for  professional  lay  workers. 

First,  A  denomination  that  does  not  trifle  with  its  own 
spiritual  life  will  pursue  the  policy  of  producing  as  quickly  as 
possible  a  generation  of  pastors  who  are  competent  when  they 
enter  upon  their  ministry  to  lead  their  parishes  in  religious  edu- 
cation. More  than  one  denomination  already  requires  every 
candidate  for  the  ministry  to  pass  an  examination  in  this 
subject.  This  shows  which  way  the  wind  is  blowing.  But  it  is 
of  itself  little  more  than  a  straw,  for  a  meagre  smattering  of 
information  suffices  to  meet  the  present  requirement.  The 
theological  seminaries  are  somewhat  generally  increasing  the 
amount  of  their  instruction  in  this  subject.  But  if  we  ask 
whether  they  are  now  ready  to  supply  the  churches  of  the  coun- 
try with  pastors  who  are  competent  to  guide  their  parishes  in 
the  reconstruction  of  religious  education — competent,  not  in  the 
sense  of  accomplished  and  mature  craftsmanship,  but  in  the 
sense  of  knowing  how  to  begin  and  how  to  keep  on  learning — 
we  must  confess  that  no  denomination  has  yet  brought  its  semi- 
naries to  this  standard. 

The  seminaries,  like  the  colleges,  are  hampered  by  pre- 
social  views  of  their  educational  function.  They  are  divided  in 
their  curriculum  and  in  their  methods  between  a  desire  to  make 


THE    DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT        279 

their  students  accomplished  and  a  desire  to  make  them  efficient. 
Much,  very  much,  has  still  to  be  done,  too,  upon  the  theory  both 
of  Christian  experience  and  of  the  church  as  a  social  agency. 
But  certain  parts  of  the  issue  are  clear.  It  is  fair  to  put  these 
two  questions  to  any  seminary:  Are  you  ready,  and  are  you 
equipped  in  faculty  and  in  library,  to  utilize  the  church's  ex- 
perience in  religious  education,  and  the  resources  of  educational 
science  as  these  bear  upon  education  specifically  in  religion? 
If  so,  have  you  so  organized  the  requirements  that  you  make 
of  your  students,  and  the  motives  that  you  bring  to  bear  upon 
them,  that  your  graduates  go  out,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  equipped 
as  beginners  in  the  professional  guidance  of  religious  education 
in  a  parish  ? 

Second,  A  denomination  that  is  educationally  awake  will 
apply  the  same  principle  to  the  curriculum  and  the  methods  of 
training-schools  for  professional  lay  workers,  such  as  deacon- 
esses, pastor's  assistants,  parish  visitors,  Sunday-school  super- 
intendents, and  missionaries.  These  schools,  in  fact,  having 
fewer  educational  traditions  to  hamper  them,  have  outstripped 
the  seminaries  in  this  respect.  Great  possibilities  of  specialized 
professional  lay  service  are  appearing  upon  the  horizon.  If 
a  really  scientific  training  in  the  educational  branch  of  Chris- 
tian work  gets  a  footing  in  the  training-schools  three  things  are 
likely  to  happen:  Much  unspecialized  and  relatively  ineffective 
parish  work  will  give  way  to  specialized  and  effective  reconstruc- 
tion of  parish  education;  professional  standards  in  this  depart- 
ment will  react  upon  other  departments,  so  that  they  too  will 
require  and  receive  specialized  skill;  and  opportunities  thus 
opened  will  attract  into  the  ranks  of  the  professional  lay  workers 
a  larger  number  of  able,  ambitious,  and  well  educated  candidates. 

Third,  A  denomination  that  sees  the  full  truth  that  religious 
education  is  properly  a  specialized  operation,  to  be  guided  by 
scientific  insight  as  well  as  inspired  by  religious  motives,  will 
have  to  put  the  training  of  its  directors  of  religious  education 
and  of  its  editors  and  secretaries  in  this  department  upon  a  foot- 
ing corresponding  to  the  best  practice  in  the  preparation  of 
superintendents  of  public  education.     It  is  true  that  most  of 


280      THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

our  superintendents  of  public  education  have  not  had  the  best 
preparation;  boards  of  education  are  still  obliged  to  employ  the 
effectively  handy  man,  the  faithful  routine  man,  or  the  one- 
sidedly  progressive  man  where  a  real  educator  is  needed.  Just 
so,  the  denominations  must  utilize  in  positions  of  educational 
power  many  a  man  who,  though  facilities  for  adequate  pro- 
fessional training  are  still  very  scarce,  and  only  yesterday  did 
not  exist,  has  demonstrated  in  semi-technical  ways  a  capacity  for 
leadership.  But  meantime  men  of  this  type  see,  and  the  de- 
nominations must  see,  that  these  positions  are  bound  to  become 
more  and  more  technical.  The  ministry  is  to  become  differenti- 
ated into  at  least  three  specialties,  the  pastorate,  missionary 
service,  and  education,  and  each  will  require,  say,  three  years 
of  training  governed  strictly  by  foresight  of  the  particular  func- 
tions of  each.  Already  events  have  occurred  in  more  than  one 
denomination  that  make  it  practically  certain  that  the  editorial 
and  administrative  branches  of  Sunday  school  departments  will 
yet  be  put  wholly  upon  this  technical  basis.  As  to  the  direc- 
torate of  religious  education,  one  sign  of  the  times  is  that  the 
men  and  women  who  form  the  Department  of  Church  Directors 
in  the  Religious  Education  Association  have  adopted  as  a  qual- 
ification for  active  membership  a  three  years'  theological  course 
that  includes  religious  education,  or  else  a  two  years'  course  in 
an  approved  school  of  religious  pedagogy. 

Fourth,  A  denomination  that  commits  itself  to  these  policies 
will  discover  that  one  of  its  chief  difficulties  concerns  a  supply 
of  competent  teachers  of  religious  education  in  colleges,  theo- 
logical seminaries,  and  training-schools.  It  goes  without  say- 
ing that  a  college  or  seminary  professorship  of  religious  educa- 
tion implies  capacity  for  research  as  well  as  for  teaching.  Large 
library  facilities,  and  a  school  of  religion  in  which  principles 
may  be  practised,  demonstrated,  and  discovered  by  experiment 
also  loom  before  us  as  ultimately  indispensable.  In  all  these 
respects  we  are  in  the  first  beginnings.  We  have  to  make  our 
way  without  precedents;  heavy  costs  have  to  be  added  to  in- 
stitutional budgets;  correlations  with  other  departments  of 
instruction  and  research  have  to  be  created,  and  meantime  the 


THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT       281 

field  is  calling  aloud  for  results.  Some  of  these  problems  will 
be  opened  still  further  in  the  next  chapter.  Already,  however, 
it  should  be  plain  that  the  denominational  problem  reaches  all 
the  way  from  the  Sunday  school  to  the  theological  seminary 
and  the  university. 

The  denominational  department  of  religious  education  as 
an  agency  for  social  reconstruction.  The  conception  that  we 
have  now  reached  is  that,  just  as  the  present  denominational 
department  of  foreign  missions  reaches  its  hand  down  to  every 
local  society,  outward  to  every  mission  field,  and  upward  to  the 
recruiting  and  training  of  missionaries,  so  the  denominational 
department  of  religious  education  should  stimulate  the  think- 
ing of  layman  and  minister  alike,  and  should  guide  and  organ- 
ize practice  in  both  the  teaching  of  children  and  in  the  teaching 
of  their  teachers.  But  there  are  various  possible  ambitions  for 
such  a  department  within  the  scope  of  this  general  statement, 
as:  Ambition  to  be  the  exclusive  purveyor  of  printed  matter 
for  the  Sunday  schools  of  the  denomination;  ambition  to  fix 
a  particular  curriculum  upon  the  whole  denomination ;  ambition 
to  develop  denominationalism  by  drilling  children  in  it;  or, 
in  contrast  to  all  these,  and  in  necessary  opposition  to  them, 
ambition  to  make  of  the  entire  denomination  a  devoted  and 
trained  force  for  the  Christian  reconstruction  of  society  in  the 
large.  An  intense,  firmly  knit  denominational  consciousness 
can  be  neither  approved  nor  disapproved  until  we  know  to  what 
it  devotes  its  energies.  If  it  merely  feeds  itself,  and  then  uses 
its  ensuing  strength  to  feed  itself  again;  if  its  great  contribu- 
tion to  the  world  is  an  invitation  to  join  the  denomination,  then 
the  best  that  can  be  said  for  it  is  that  it  represents  social  develop- 
ment, but  arrested  development.  When  the  great  social  de- 
votion comes,  these  half -gods  will  go.  And  the  central  function 
of  a  department  of  religious  education  is  to  awaken  the  great 
devotion.  Therefore  denominational  consciousness  will  be 
quickened  into  interdenominational  consciousness,  community 
consciousness,  world  consciousness.  This  will  be  done  through 
the  social  content  of  lesson  material;  through  provision  for  the 
practice  of  social  service;   through  community  religious  enter- 


282       THE  DENOMINATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 

prises,  such  as  teacher  training,  in  contrast  to  merely  denomina- 
tional enterprises;  through  encouragement  to  experimentation 
and  variety  as  against  uniformity;  through  participation  of 
denominational  leaders  in  great  non-denominational  move- 
ments for  educational  and  social  advance.  Such  a  department 
of  religious  education  makes  for  denominational  strength,  but 
not  for  denominationalism.  It  makes,  rather,  for  the  democracy 
of  God. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS 

The  value  of  denominational  variety  in  religious  educa- 
tion. We  are  now  to  consider  the  need  of  organizing  religious 
education  upon  a  basis  broader  than  that  of  the  denomination. 
The  impHcation  will  be  that  there  are  some  important  things 
that  denominations  as  such  are  not  best  qualified  to  do.  Lest 
this  implication  should  be  interpreted  as  depreciation  of  active 
denominational  loyalty,  let  it  be  said  in  advance  that  some  im- 
portant ends  are  best  attained  through  free  variation.  We 
may  think  of  the  history  of  each  religious  body  as  an  experi- 
ment in  social  religion,  and  of  the  educational  work  of  each  as 
an  experiment  in  religious  education.  Now,  in  a  matter  as 
complicated  as  this,  a  variety  of  experiments,  each  bringing 
some  particular  factor  or  method  into  the  foreground,  has  its 
own  value.  At  a  later  point  in  our  discussion,  Part  V,  we  shall 
see  how,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  several  types  and  tendencies  in 
Christian  education  have  sprung  up,  each  having  something  to 
contribute  toward  the  effective  socialized  type  that  is  the  ob- 
jective point  of  otu*  present  aspiration.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  we  can  invent  education  any  more  than  we  can  invent 
family  life.  In  both  matters  we  have,  rather,  to  reflect  upon 
what  already  exists  in  order  to  find  elements  worthy  to  be  built 
into  a  fairer  structure,  as  well  as  to  discover  what  to  avoid. 
We  learn  to  educate  by  educating.  It  is  by  following  out  vari- 
ous ideas  that  their  value  or  their  lack  of  value  is  demonstrated. 
In  fact,  the  " trial-and-error  method"  of  learning  applies  not 
only  to  a  rat  that  is  finding  out  how  to  get  the  cheese,  not  only 
to  a  child  who  is  adjusting  himself  to  the  laws  of  family  life,  but 
also  to  educators  who  desire  to  know  how  best  to  educate. 

283 


284  BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS 

The  verdict  of  history  upon  the  denominational  phase  of  the 
Christian  reUgion  is  Hkely  to  be  that  in  the  narrower  loyalties 
men  received  a  training  in  free  co-operation  that  was  an  essen- 
tial preliminary  to  the  wider  co-operations  that  lead  on  to  a 
just  world  organization.  Hence,  the  part  of  wisdom  is  not  to 
lower  the  intensity  of  denominational  loyalty,  but  to  socialize 
its  content  ever  more  and  more.  The  reform  of  religious  educa- 
tion needs  a  background,  not  of  denominational  sloth  or  half- 
heartedness,  but  of  active  devotion  to  whatever  educational  ideal 
seems  vital  from  the  denominational  point  of  view.  "  Devotion 
to  an  ideal"  means,  of  course,  something  more  than  speeding 
up  the  machinery  of  a  routine,  something  more  than  a  prej- 
udice charging  into  battle,  something  more  than  conceited  com- 
placency; it  means,  rather,  the  sort  of  conviction  and  of  earnest- 
ness that  goes  with  the  open  eye,  the  eye  that  discriminates 
between  ideals,  that  recognizes  Christliness  beyond  the  pale, 
yes,  that  looks  ever  for  discrepancies  between  one's  social  prac- 
tice and  the  Christian  ideal.  Denominational  loyalty  like  this 
will  contribute  to  the  wider  organization  of  men,  not  hinder  it. 
But  such  devotion  will  draw  upon  extradenominational  re- 
sources.   To  these  let  us  now  turn. 

A  common  social  purpose  tends  to  create  common  organs 
for  itself.  To  the  extent  that  any  denomination  teaches  the 
Christian  principle  of  social  justice  and  of  world  society,  it 
creates  a  psychological  necessity  for  organizations  of  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  more  broad  than  the  denomination.  An  indi- 
vidualistic religion,  whether  of  the  sacerdotal,  or  of  the  dog- 
matic, or  of  the  experiential  type,  can  express  itself  fully  within 
the  walls  of  a  sect.  Its  interest  in  the  world  at  large  is  to  get 
men  inside  the  same  walls.  But  when  one  has  the  social  mind 
of  Christ  one's  ambition  is  to  give  effect  to  it  wherever  and  how- 
ever one  can  in  all  the  world  by  combining  with  any  man  who 
is  willing  to  go  any  distance,  great  or  small,  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. The  achievement  of  a  social  interpretation  of  the  gospel 
leads  right  on  toward  the  achievement  of  interdenominational 
union  of  effort.  Love  has  to  produce  organization,  both  be- 
cause love  makes  men  want  to  be  in  one  another's  company. 


BEYOND  THE  DENOMLMATIONS  285 

and  because  it  gives  them  a  common  purpose  to  do  a  large  woTk. 
One  can  easily  witness  in  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches 
the  contrast  between  the  inhibiting  effect  of  doctrinal  sensitive- 
ness and  the  emancipating  effect  of  social  purpose.  The  dele- 
gates can  heartily  agree,  for  example,  to  work  for  a  weekly  rest 
day,  though  they  cannot  agree  upon  the  scriptural  basis  for 
Sunday  observance. 

A  social  theory  of  religious  education  is  bound  to  have  its 
eyes  turned  toward  the  wide  organization  of  religious  educa- 
tion itself.  Without  at  all  overestimating  the  clarity  or  the 
unity  of  social  purpose  in  the  Religious  Education  Association, 
one  can  nevertheless  see  that  the  fundamental  source  of  its 
peculiar  influence  is  its  social  spirit  and  outlook.  Here  is  a 
society  that  does  not  publish  text-books,  that  does  not  control 
any  curriculum,  that  founds  no  schools,  that  has  no  authority 
over  or  official  entrance  into  any  school,  that  was  not  founded 
by  the  denominations,  and  is  not  supported  by  their  funds  but 
chiefly  by  contributions  from  individuals  belonging  to  the 
underpaid  salaried  classes;  yet  this  society  has  touched  with  a 
quickening  hand  almost  the  whole  of  Protestant  religious  educa- 
tion in  this  country  and  to  some  extent  in  foreign  lands.  It  has 
been  able  to  do  this,  in  the  first  place,  because  of  the  social, 
co-operative  spirit  that  was  growing  within  the  denominations. 
The  organization  was  a  practical  necessity  because,  scattered 
through  the  religious  bodies,  there  was  a  large  and  growing  num- 
ber of  educators  who  had  begun  to  conceive  education  in  more 
social  terms  than  those  of  dogma  or  of  ecclesiasticism,  even  in 
terms  of  the  needs  of  modern  society.  Hence  it  comes  to  pass 
that  the  deliberations  that  have  taken  place  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Association  have  almost  constantly  placed  side  by  side 
problems  of  social  advance  and  problems  of  educational  organ- 
ization, method,  and  material.  If  nothing  more  had  been  ac- 
complished than  to  furnish  a  clearing-house  of  ideas  for  all  sorts 
of  workers  in  religious  education,  the  social  significance  would 
have  been  large.  But  there  is  here,  in  addition,  nothing  less 
than  the  forerunner  of  a  unified  educational  consciousness 
among  the  Protestant  bodies. 


286  BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS 

What  administrative  organs  this  consciousness  will  produce 
cannot  be  said  as  yet.  The  Sunday  School  Council  of  Evangeli- 
cal Denominations,  founded  by  the  voluntary  action  of  de- 
nominational editors,  publishers,  and  secretaries,  may  possibly 
become  a  sort  of  federal  legislative  council  for  determining  com- 
mon policies,  standards,  and  methods  within  a  restricted  group 
of  denominations.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  each  body  that  is 
represented  in  the  Council  has  what  amounts  to  a  veto  power 
upon  all  acts,  the  policies  that  can  be  agreed  upon  will  be 
shaded  toward  an  average  or  toward  a  mimimum;  they  will  not 
represent  the  best  that  the  more  progressive  denominations 
are  already  prepared  to  do. 

Another  interdenominational  body,  the  Federal  CounciFs 
Commission  on  Christian  Education,  has  begun  to  consider 
important  special  problems.  Here  is  an  agency  that  might 
conceivably  do  much  to  promote  the  socializing  of  religious 
education,  particularly  through  some  close  connection  with  the 
other  social  activities  of  the  Council.  Yet  we  have  to  recognize 
the  significance  of  the  fact  that  socially  hesitant  denominations 
have  equal  rights  with  socially  progressive  ones  in  the  Federal 
Council,  and  that  religious  education  is  the  point  at  which 
social  hesitancy  is  most  likely  to  become  social  obstruction. 

The  oldest  of  all  the  interdenominational  societies  in  the 
field  of  religious  education,  the  American  Sunday  School  Union, 
is  devoting  its  energies  chiefly  to  founding  new  Sunday  schools 
of  an  entirely  conventional  type.  The  International  Sunday 
School  Association,  which  touches  directly  the  largest  number 
of  schools,  and  could  conceivably  lead  in  reform,  is  not  only 
subject  to  the  same  limitations  upon  progressiveness  as  the 
Sunday  School  Council,  but  its  policy  has  been  so  distinctly 
and  for  so  long  a  time  controlled  by  religious  conservatism  that 
does  not  think  in  either  social  or  educational  terms,  that  the 
Association,  instead  of  leading  in  the  reconstruction  of  religious 
education,  has  had  to  be  painfully  won  to  the  cause.  The 
momentum  of  this  conservatism  has  been  lost,  and  the  engine 
has  now  been  caught  upon  a  dead  centre.  Yet  here  is  a  vast 
amount   of   machinery   for   interdenominational   co-operation. 


BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS  287 

machinery  that  is  too  valuable  to  be  thrown  upon  the  scrap- 
heap,  or  to  be  kept  at  the  less  significant  operations.  It  used 
to  be  the  proud  boast  of  Association  leaders  that  under  its 
guidance  nearly  all  the  Protestant  Sunday  schools  of  the  coun- 
try, and  many  in  foreign  parts,  studied  the  same  lesson  on  Sun- 
day. This  was  interpreted  as  a  marching  together  of  the  forces 
of  Protestantism.  The  bursting  of  this  fancy  through  more 
careful  analysis  of  the  educative  process  does  not  rebuke  the 
notion  that  Protestantism  might  really  march  together,  nor  does 
it  forbid  the  International  Association  to  organize  the  marchers. 
But  concrete  social  goals  are  necessary.  Bible  study  is  not  the 
goal,  but  only  a  means  thereto.  If  the  religious  earnestness 
that  has  always  characterized  this  old  society  should  turn  to 
the  social  significance  of  the  gospel,  and  the  social  ends  of 
religious  education,  there  is  no  knowing  what  contributions  to 
the  wider  organization  of  Christian  forces  might  result. 

The  basis  for  the  wider  organization  of  religious  education  is 
a  common  purpose  to  do  the  will  of  God  in  establishing  the  de- 
mocracy of  God  upon  earth.  Without  denying  social  value  to 
unions  formed  upon  a  narrower  platform  than  this,  and  without 
impatience  with  ancient  shibboleths  that  say  nothing  of  mercy, 
or  of  justice,  or  of  world  society,  we  must  nevertheless  see  that 
nothing  but  love  is  a  sufficient  organizing  principle — not  our 
reasonings  about  love,  but  the  act  of  loving,  and  the  purpose  to 
go  on  loving  to  the  uttermost.  When  we  conceive  religious 
education  as  having  the  function  of  inspiring  the  young  with 
this  Christian  purpose,  and  of  training  them  in  methods  of 
making  it  effective  in  the  world,  then  religious  education  will 
create  for  itself  organs  as  broad  as  the  purpose. 

This  principle  is  illustrated  in  the  Missionary  Education 
Movement.  Here  is  an  organization  that  is  doing  educational 
work  for  and  in  many  denominations  as  their  common  organ. 
If  I  mistake  not,  this  is  the  nearest  approach  that  has  yet  been 
made  to  an  effective,  working  union  of  several  denominations. 
It  has  come  to  pass  almost  silently,  and  now  that  it  is  here  it 
has  the  "feel"  of  a  natural  and  simple  part  of  every-day  life. 
What  has  made  this  possible?    The  clarification  of  the  mis- 


288  BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS 

slonary  motive  as  that  of  outgoing,  sacrificial  love.  Denomina- 
tional differences  do  not  keep  us  apart  when  we  ask,  What  are 
the  conditions  of  child-life  or  of  the  life  of  women,  or  of  the  life 
of  men  in  central  Africa  or  in  western  China,  and  what  can  we 
do  to  improve  these  conditions?  In  short,  the  foundation  for 
a  wide  and  effective  organization  of  religious  education  is  pre- 
cisely the  socializing  of  the  content  and  purpose  of  our  religion. 

The  wholesomeness  of  independent  criticism  and  propa- 
ganda, and  the  unwholesomeness  of  anjrthing  like  a  de- 
nominational educational  trust.  Anthropologists  tell  us  that 
one  great  reason  of  the  backwardness  of  the  native  tribes  in  the 
interior  of  Africa  is  that  they  have  had  so  little  intercourse  wit :h 
other  peoples.  Historians  are  accustomed  to  point  out  the 
quickening  of  the  mind  that  comes  from  contact  of  one  civiliza- 
tion with  another.  It  is  not  less  true  that  every  religious 
denomination  requires  for  its  own  health  plentiful  contact  with 
standpoints  and  practices  other  than  its  own.  Religious  in- 
breeding connotes,  in  the  natural  order  of  things,  religious 
deterioration.  There  is  not  a  denomination  to  which  inde- 
pendent agitation  and  propaganda  of  religious  education  reaches 
that  has  not  cause  to  be  thankful  for  it.  This  is  true  even  from 
the  standpoint  of  denominationalism  except  when  it  assumes  the 
position  of  infallibility.  Independent  criticism,  independent 
publications,  fresh  experiments — these  enable  me  to  see,  as  I 
could  not  by  looking  at  myself,  just  what  I  am  doing,  and  how 
I  can  better  attain  my  present  ends.  But  independent  agitation 
has  the  added  value  of  helping  me  to  revise  my  ends.  Unless  I 
claim  infallibility,  I  must  be  ready  to  revise  them,  and  I  ought  to 
be  thankful  for  stimulation  to  clear  thinking  and  deep  feeling 
with  respect  to  them. 

A  denominational  department  of  religious  education  that  en- 
deavors to  be  self-sufficient  is  bound  to  injure  its  own  cause. 
Any  combination  of  denominations  that  undertakes  to  build 
walls  that  shall  keep  out  everything  that  has  not  been  produced 
within  the  enclosure  will  fail,  of  necessity,  to  provide  the  best 
possible.  Love  must  keep  open  house  to  ideas  as  well  as  to 
persons.     It  must  receive  as  well  as  give.     No  group  of  denom- 


BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS  289 

inatlonal  leaders  is  wise  enough  to  prescribe  the  uniformly  best 
course  of  lessons,  or  the  uniformly  best  lesson  publications, 
or  the  uniformly  best  schemes  for  teacher  training  for  even  one 
denomination.  There  is  no  uniformly  best  for  schools  and 
conditions  that  are  not  uniform.  And  if  the  uniformly  best  for 
to-day  could  be  discovered,  to-morrow  it  would  no  longer  be 
so,  but  would  be  at  some  point  or  other  a  hinderance  to  the  best. 

Beyond  all  this  we  need  to  keep  in  mind  the  history  of  pub- 
lishing houses  that  have  enjoyed  a  monopoly,  or  anything  ap- 
proaching it,  within  a  given  ecclesiastical  market.  When  busi- 
ness processes  and  religious  officialism  blend,  the  possibilities 
of  confusion  are  immeasurable.  Such  a  combination  is,  on 
the  whole,  as  deceptive  as  desire  for  riches.  Not  that  religion 
and  business  should  be  kept  apart  from  each  other.  The  crux 
of  the  matter  is  in  the  monopolistic  tendency;  it  is  in  the  pur- 
suit, in  ecclesiastical  business,  of  economic  policies  that  are 
socially  objectionable  anywhere.  If  we  unite  such  policies 
with  religious  education,  we  must  curtail  its  social  purpose  from 
the  outset,  and  we  subject  it  to  the  necessity  of  endless  com- 
promises. 

The  inference,  which  is  confessedly  harder  to  put  into  prac- 
tice than  is  the  policy  of  the  closed  market,  is  that  religious 
education  will  get  on  most  rapidly  toward  its  social  goal  when  a 
variety  of  influences  has  access  to  every  church  school.  The 
problem  of  adaptation  to  particular  local  conditions  should  be 
kept  constantly  alive.  The  study  of  what  other  schools  are 
doing  should  be  steadily  encouraged.  The  habit  of  openness 
toward  new  ideas  and  methods  and  materials,  from  whatever 
source  appearing,  and  some  capacity  for  judging  them,  should 
be  one  of  the  aims  in  the  training  of  teachers  and  of  leaders. 
Such  a  policy  will  not  only  enable  schools  here  and  there  to  do 
more  excellent  work;  it  will  react  favorably  upon  the  denomi- 
national or  interdenominational  publishing  enterprise  itself. 
Greater  acuteness  and  foresight  in  the  securing  of  material, 
greater  attractiveness  in  the  presentation  of  it,  and  greater 
business  skill  in  manufacturing  and  selling  will  be  the  effects. 

The  participation  of  universities  in  the  making  of  religious 


290  BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS 

educators.  When  religious  education  acquires  the  purpose  of 
taking  a  definite  part  in  the  evolution  of  society  as  a  whole,  and 
when,  in  order  to  fulfil  this  purpose,  we  undertake  to  lift  the 
teaching  of  religion  from  the  plane  of  traditional  routine  to  that 
of  a  scientifically  controlled  process,  we  obligate  ourselves  to 
cosmopolitanism  of  intellect  as  well  as  of  heart.  To  make  it 
effective,  we  must  go  on  to  assume  the  university  attitude 
of  freedom,  of  scientific  method,  of  eagerness  for  new  knowl- 
edge and  for  the  widest  organization  of  knowledge.  In  the 
preparation  of  leaders  the  top  round  of  the  ladder  will  not  be 
the  training-school  (under  whatever  name  it  goes),  but  the  school 
or  combination  of  schools  (under  whatever  name)  that  has  the 
university's  range  of  instruction,  together  with  the  spirit  of 
research  and  facilities  therefor. 

The  course  of  recent  events  leaves  no  ambiguity  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  this  requirement  is  to  be  met,  namely,  by  com- 
bining the  work  of  a  department  or  school  of  theology  with  the 
work  of  a  university  department  of  education.  The  school  of 
theology  will  contribute,  in  general,  an  intensive  study  of 
religion  and  of  its  works;  the  university  department  of  educa- 
tion will  contribute  to  outlook  upon  education  and  to  inlook  into 
the  psychology  of  it.  To  be  more  specific,  the  range  of  oppor- 
tunity for  one  who  desires  to  become  a  technically  accomplished 
specialist  in  religious  education  may  be  expected  to  include  the 
following: 

(a)  The  history  of  religion. 

(6)  The  psychology  of  religion. 

(c)  The  philosophy  of  religion. 

(d)  The  sociology  of  religion. 

(e)  The  general  history  of  education. 

(/)  The  special  history  of  religious  education. 

(g)  The  psychology  of  education. 

(h)  The  religious  life  of  children  and  youth. 

{{)  Observation  and  analysis  of  the  teaching  process  in  the  day  school. 

(j)  Observation  and  analysis  of  the  teaching  process  in  the  church 

school  or  school  of  religion. 

{k)  The  general  principles  and  methods  of  school  administration. 


BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS  291 

(/)    The  special  methods  of  administration  in  religious  education. 
(m)  Closely  supervised  practice  in  religious  education, 
(n)    Provision  for  experimental  study  of  religious  education, 
(o)    The  philosophy  or  general  theory  of  religious  education. 

All  these  courses,  it  is  assumed,  will  be  on  the  university  level 
both  with  respect  to  standards  of  admission  and  of  study,  and 
with  respect  to  standards  of  scientific  thoroughness.  The  order 
in  which  the  items  are  named  is  not  intended  to  indicate  any- 
thing as  to  the  arrangement  of  a  student's  program,  but  only 
certain  relations  between  the  department  of  education  and  the 
theological  school.  The  relation  here  suggested  between  the  va- 
rious courses  is  that  of  close  intertwining,  or  even  of  something 
still  more  intimate.  They  are  all  related  to  one  another  as  are 
the  organs  of  the  human  body  when  it  lives  and  breathes.  We 
have  here  no  mechanical  juxtaposition  of  pieces  of  knowledge, 
but  the  unity  of  a  single  purpose  realizing  itself  in  a  complex 
world.  In  the  light  of  this  purpose,  it  would  be  incorrect  to 
think  of  the  courses  in  the  department  of  education  as  funda- 
mental, while  those  in  the  school  of  theology  are  accessory. 
The  courses  in  religious  education,  and  in  the  study  of  religion, 
not  only  make  a  direct  attack  upon  data  that  are  unconsidered 
in  the  department  of  education  (note,  for  example,  b,  d,  and  A), 
but  the  practical  methods  in  religious  education,  being  con- 
trolled by  the  aU-pervasive  aim  of  promoting  religious  growth, 
do  not  merely  apply  what  has  been  learned  in  day-school  experi- 
ence. The  impossibility,  too,  of  ranking  religious  education  as 
a  particular  under  a  general  conception  of  education  that  makes 
no  analysis  of  the  religious  life  might  seem  to  be  obvious  enough. 
In  addition,  the  theory  of  religious  education  tends,  on  the  whole, 
to  be  more  inclusive  than  educational  philosophy  that  lives  in 
constant  contact  with  the  restrictions  of  state  education. 

From  all  this  it  will  appear  that  the  whole  curriculum  for  the 
advance  of  learning  and  for  the  preparation  of  the  highest  ex- 
perts in  religious  education  must  be  lifted  above  denomina- 
tionalism.  Our  task  is  never  that  of  making  merely  denomina- 
tional applications  of  non-religious  educational  theories  and 


292  BEYOND  THE  DENOMINATIONS 

methods.  We  must  carry  the  unsectarianism  of  science  into 
our  analysis  of  what  is  specifically  religious.  Psychology, 
sociology,  and  experiment  must  speak  in  their  own  tongue  with 
respect  to  the  most  intimate  things  in  religious  experience,  often 
with  respect  to  matters  upon  which  denominations  are  sensitive. 
If  a  denomination  chooses  to  maintain  a  theological  school  in 
which  these  things  are  promoted  with  hearty  unreserve,  this  de- 
nomination proves  thereby  that  it  is  passing  into  the  larger 
society;  it  is  losing  its  life  and  gaining  life. 


PART  V 

EXISTING  TENDENCIES  IN  CHRISTIAN 

EDUCATION  VIEWED  FROM   THE 

SOCIAL  STANDPOINT 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE   ROMAN   CATHOLIC   TYPE 

The  purpose,  scope,  and  spirit  of  Part  V  require  a  word  of 
advance  explanation.  The  purpose  is  to  set  in  high  relief  the 
theory  that  has  already  been  expounded.  In  accordance  with 
the  principle,  expressed  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  chapter, 
that  theory  arises  within  practice  and  is  continuous  with  it, 
I  intend  to  show  that  the  new  educational  point  of  view  is,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  arising  within  the  churches.  Like  other  new 
inspirations,  it  has  to  struggle  for  utterance,  oppose  traditions, 
and  be  opposed.  It  has  to  be  refined  in  the  furnace  of  experience 
before  it  fully  reveals  its  own  nature.  Into  the  ecclesiastical 
furnace,  then,  let  us  take  a  look,  seeking  there  for  facts  that 
illustrate,  either  by  similarity  or  by  contrast,  tendencies  toward 
a  social  view  of  religious  education. 

Some  differences  between  Christian  bodies  will  have  to  be 
mentioned,  and  in  some  instances  discrimination  will  have  to 
be  made  between  tendencies  that  co-exist  in  the  same  body. 
But  no  general  survey  of  denominational  types  or  tendencies 
will  be  offered,  nor  will  our  evaluation  of  a  particular  educa- 
tional thread  constitute  a  judgment  upon  any  church  as  a  whole. 
Indeed,  the  spirit  of  this  analysis  is  not  that  of  seeking  to  give 
or  to  withhold  credit,  but  rather  that  of  seeing  facts  simply  as 
facts.  Of  course  I  shall  make  no  concealment  or  even  pretense 
of  reticence  as  to  my  own  attitudes;  in  view  of  what  precedes, 
any  such  attempt,  even  if  there  were  a  motive  for  it,  would  be 
futile.  But  I  trust  that  to  be  possessed  of  a  conviction  will 
not  debar  either  author  or  reader  from  the  recognition  of  facts 
or  of  typical  tendencies  within  facts. 

295 


296  CATHOLICISM 

Presuppositions  of  Roman  Catholic  education.  No  Chris- 
tian body  is  more  insistent  upon  education  as  a  primary  func- 
tion of  the  church,  and  no  one  has  proved  the  depth  of  its  educa- 
tional convictions  by  greater  sacrifice,  than  the  CathoUc  Church 
in  the  United  States.  No  other  church ,  holds  with  such  una- 
nimity a  definite,  logically  articulated  theory  of  religious  educa- 
tion, nor  exhibits  greater  consistency  in  practice.  This  utter 
coherence  is  due  primarily  to  a  firm  grasp  by  the  entire  hier- 
archy upon  certain  presuppositions.  They  may  be  conveniently 
expressed  as  follows : 

(1)  Education  is  the  transmission  of  a  completed  faith,  not 
participation  in  the  evolution  of  a  faith.  In  Catholic  education 
changes  in  method  may  occur  within  limits  presently  to  be  in- 
dicated, but  the  purpose  and  the  content  are  assumed  to  be 
fixed  and  uniform  for  the  whole  world  to  the  end  of  time.  Rep- 
etition, reproduction,  prevention  of  change  within  the  scope 
of  religion — this  rather  than  experiment,  new  enterprise,  or  dis- 
covery, is  the  spirit. 

(2)  The  basal  process  in  this  transmission  is  intellectualistic. 
The  term  "intellectualistic''  is  here  used  because  dogma  is  made 
to  precede  and  govern  life.  The  processes  of  intelligence  are 
not  employed  primarily  for  defining  an  experience  or  a  purpose 
that  the  pupil  already  has  or  is  in  process  of  forming,  but  for 
defining  something  entirely  antecedent  to  such  experience  and 
purpose,  and  intended  as  a  control  thereof.  Archbishop  Ire- 
land puts  the  matter  thus:  "Nor  is  mere  intellectual  instruction 
sufficient  for  the  religious  education  of  the  child.  Intellectual 
instruction  is  necessary;  it  is  the  fount  from  which  all  else  will 
flow.  But  the  child  must  be  led  as  by  the  hand  to  put  into  daily 
practice  the  truths  with  which  its  mind  has  been  saturated."^ 
How  intellectualistic  this  notion  of  a  preliminary  mental  sat- 
uration is  we  shall  see  vividly  when  we  examine  the  methods 
employed  for  accomplishing  it. 

(3)  Both  dogma  and  rules  of  conduct  are  to  he  imposed  upon 
the  pupil  hy  authority.     This  authority,  Tnoreover,  is  lodged  in 

1  Bernard  Feeney,  The  Catholic  Sunday  School  (St.  Loxiis,  1907),  page  x. 
The  italics  are  mine. 


CATHOLICISM  297 

living  men  who  announce  and  administer  penalties  for  non- 
conformity.^ Authority  as  teacher,  authority  to  command  what 
is  to  be  beHeved  and  done,  descends  in  orderly  gradation  from 
the  Pope  to  every  priest.  There  is  always  a  living  voice 
that  can  declare  the  end  of  the  matter  in  everything  that 
concerns  faith  and  morals.^  This  authority  is  not  limited  to 
the  declaration  of  general  principles,  but  it  goes  on  to  hearing 
confessions,  imposing  penance,  and  granting  or  withholding 
absolution;  to  permitting  or  forbidding  participation  in  sa- 
cred rites  held  to  have  the  greatest  potency;  finally,  to  con- 
trol of  the  keys  of  eternal  life.  Whatever  the  method  of  teach- 
ing employed,  then,  however  gentle,  however  free  from  painful 
restrictions,  'round  about  the  whole  are  the  adamantine  walls 
of  psychic  compulsion.  Within  these  walls  whatever  is  said 
and  done  has  within  it  the  implication,  the  atmosphere,  of 
a  government  that  is  in  no  sense  responsible  to  the  gov- 
erned. 

Much  Protestant  education,  too,  has  attempted  to  impose 
the  Christian  faith  by  authority,  but  with  an  educationally 
important  difference.  When  authority  is  lodged  in  the  Bible 
rather  than  in  a  living  teacher,  variant  interpretations  of  the 
authority  itself  are  possible.  The  Bible  is  powerless  to  prevent 
them,  or  to  punish,  even  so  much  as  by  a  threat  of  withdrawing 
spiritual  privileges,  any  person  who  falls  into  error.  Conse- 
quently, Protestant  teachers,  all  in  all,  instead  of  wielding  power, 
use  persuasion,  or  seek  a  rational  and  essentially  free  assent. 
As  a  rule,  children  know  that  inside  the  velvet  glove  there  are 
no  fingers  of  steel. 

Within  Protestantism,  consequently,  there  is  more  unreserved 

i"If  .  .  .  by  'independence  of  mind'  is  understood  unrestrained  liberty 
of  thought  in  reUgious  matters,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Ratio  Studiorum 
and  the  whole  Institute  of  the  Society  [of  Jesus]  are  uncompromisingly  op- 
posed to  it.  and  that  the  Jesuits  always  endeavored  to  suppress  it.  For  they 
are  bound  by  their  profession,  and  fully  determined  to  uphold,  defend,  and 
propagate  revealed  religion,  as  taught  and  interpreted  by  the  Catholic  Church. 
In  this  they  do  not  differ  from  other  religious  orders,  nor  from  any  consistent 
Catholics."  Article,  "Jesuits"  by  R.  Swickerath  in  Monroe's  Cyclopedia  of 
Education. 

2  According  to  the  Catholic  theory,  no  one  but  the  Church  has  a  right  to  teach 
morals  at  all. 


298  CATHOLICISM 

lodgment  for  the  educational  doctrine  of  Interest,  and  there  is 
readier  assent  to  conforming  material  as  well  as  method  to  needs 
that  appear  in  the  pupil's  own  experience.  The  position  of 
Catholicism  is  that  the  child  must  be  conformed  to  the  material 
and  to  the  teacher  who  officially  transmits  it.  "The  position 
which  the  director  holds  in  the  Sunday  school  is  supreme. 
He  is  the  prime  mover  in  everything.  All  that  is  done  is  in- 
augurated by  him.  He  is  the  ^ forma  totius  gregis.'  The  whole 
machinery  is  guided  by  his  touch,  or  rather,  the  entire  mecha- 
nism is  in  a  manner  of  his  creation.  He  is  not  only  the  rudder, 
but  his  at  the  same  time  is  the  firm  hand  thereon. "^  "As  to 
the  director,  and  this  is  as  it  should  be,  a  step  cannot  be  taken 
in  any  path  without  confronting  him.  The  children,  to  use 
the  scholastic  phrase,  are  the  prime  matter;  the  director  and 
the  teacher  the  substantial  form  which  gives  the  Sunday  school 
its  individual  existence."  ^ 

Such  a  Sunday  school,  considered  as  a  society,  is  an  autoc- 
racy, a  benevolent  one  no  doubt,  but  yet  an  autocracy,  and 
by  this  primarily  must  its  capacity  for  social  education  be 
determined.  It  is  the  purpose  of  Catholic  education,  the  very 
kernel  of  it,  to  perpetuate  and  make  universal  an  autocratic 
government  of  religious  and  ethical  thinking  and  of  religious 
and  moral  conduct.  That  this  is  the  very  antipodes  of  the 
aspiration  for  a  democracy  of  God  is  obvious  enough.  And  the 
opposition  does  not  cease  at  any  supposed  boundary  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  temporal.  Such  boundaries  are  mere  conven- 
tions; the  facts  show  no  such  separation.  For  no  laws  of  spiri- 
tual life  are  clearer  than  the  interconnectedness  of  soul  and 
body,  the  continuity  of  the  ethical  with  the  political,  the  suffoca- 
tion of  the  higher  life  by  economic  injustice.  Moreover,  even 
if  the  existence  of  these  spiritual  laws  should  oe  denied,  the  fact 
would  remain  that  autocratic  authority  over  matters  of  faith 
and  morals  includes  the  authority  to  determine  autocratically 
what  constitutes  a  matter  of  morals.     In  short,  Catholic  educa- 

1 E.  A.  Halpin,  The  Method  of  the  Catholic  Sunday-School  (New  York,  1904), 

p.  12. 

aJWd.,  p.  40. 


CATHOLICISM  299 

tion  not  only  cannot  be  education  for  democracy ;  it  cannot  fail 
to  educate  against  democracy. 

The  particular  aims  of  Roman  Catholic  education.  The 
characteristic  aims  follow  so  directly  from  the  presuppositions 
that  little  more  than  an  enumeration  is  necessary. 

(1)  To  fix  in  the  mind  of  the  child  church  doctrine  and  tradition. 
"The  modern  Sunday  school,  they  say,  was  originated  in  1781 
by  Robert  Raikes.  That  is,  of  course,  the  Protestant  Sunday 
school.  Non-Catholics  have  imposed  the  name  on  us  all,  yet 
the  difference  between  their  work  and  ours  is  exceedingly  great. 
Our  Sunday  schools  should  be  called  catechism  schools  or 
classes.  We  teach  catechism.  They  teach,  or  explain,  or — 
God  knows  what — the  Bible.  Their  Sunday  school  is  a  Bible 
class.  Ours  is  a  catechism  class.  .  .  .  The  Bible  holds  a 
place  in  our  schools,  but  not  that  which  belongs  to  the  cate- 
chism."^ 

(2)  To  produce  observance  of  particular  rules  with  respect  to 
religious  devotions  and  icith  respect  to  conduct.  Children  are  told 
just  what  to  do  in  church  and  elsewhere,  and  they  are  minutely 
drilled  in  doing  it.  They  are  not  left  with  general  principles  or 
ideals,  the  applications  of  which  they  must  work  out  by  their 
own  thought  and  experiment,  but  with  rules  that  specify  the 
very  thing  that  is  to  be  done  or  avoided,  and  with  the  habit 
of  doing  it  already  formed.  Thus  it  is  that  the  Church  seeks 
to  perpetuate  itself  unchanged. 

(3)  To  fix  the  spirit  and  habit  of  full,  unquestioning  obedience  to 
the  Church.  In  view  of  what  has  been  said  of  the  autocratic 
character  of  Catholic  education,  it  will  be  sufficient  at  this  point 
merely  to  indicate  that  the  subjects  of  autocratic  rule  can  be, 
and  are,  trained  to  believe  in,  obey,  and  support  it  with  unwaver- 
ing conviction.  How  to  produce  such  obedience  was  one  of  the 
great  and  successfully  solved  problems  of  the  founders  of 
Jesuit  education.  Loyola  the  soldier  did  not  abandon  militarism 
when  he  turned  from  war  to  the  Church;  he  merely  transferred 
the  sphere  of  his  militarism  to  the  human  spirit.  In  the  Society 
of  Jesus  he  raised  an  army  of  perfectly  regimented  minds.    They, 

1  Halpin,  p.  2. 


300  CATHOLICISM 

in  turn,  have  found  in  teaching  their  supreme  opportunity  for 
producing  a  Hke  regimented  Church.^ 

The  fundamentals  of  method  in  Roman  Catholic  education. 
It  is  not  by  any  subtle  trick,  or  ingenious  device,  or  mysterious 
influence  that  CathoHcism  secures  these  results,  but  by  the  per- 
sistent and  organized  use  of  simple  and  obvious  methods. 

(1)  Habit-formation  by  drill  processes  is  the  pervading  essence 
of  the  whole.  The  laws  of  habit,  let  it  be  remembered,  apply 
to  much  more  than  overt  acts.  Attitudes  as  well  as  particular 
acts  can  become  habits,  and  attitudes  include  shades  of  feeling. 
We  can  acquire  an  habitual  interest  in  one  thing,  so  that  we 
notice  it  when  it  is  present,  and  an  habitual  indifference  to  an- 
other, so  that  its  presence  goes  unnoticed.  We  can  acquire  hard 
and  fast  associations  of  ideas,  so  that  A  always  brings  up  P, 
which  is  agreeable,  while  B  always  recalls  Q,  which  is  disagree- 
able. In  this  way  we  can  go  on  to  form  a  habit  of  thinking  thus 
or  so  of  anything,  and  such  an  intellectual  habit  may  become 
so  firm  that  the  habitual  conclusion  has  the  force  of  a  self- 
evident  presupposition.  Conscience,  taste,  and  in  fact  stand- 
ards of  judgment  in  every  sphere  can  become  petrified  as  habits. 
A  habit  of  self-limitation — or  of  submission  to  the  will  of  an- 
other, can  become  so  ingrained  as  to  seem  second  nature.  It 
is  by  the  continuous  use  of  this  principle  that  Catholic  educa- 
tion gets  its  results.  It  is  a  system  of  habit-formation.  Let 
us,  then,  glance  at  two  or  three  phases  of  the  process. 

(2)  Hence  the  great  prominence  of  memory  drill  upon  verbal 
formulce.     The  great  propositions  of  the  faith  are  not  reserved 

1  Now  and  then  the  question  is  asked  how  the  Roman  priesthood  is  kept 
in  intellectual  subservience  to  the  papacy.  How  came  it  to  pass  that  modem- 
ism,  for  example,  was  so  easily  suppressed  ?  Why  were  there  not  more  martyrs 
to  it,  at  least?  Especially,  what  kept  modernism  from  raising  its  head  at  all 
in  this  country,  where  freedom  of  thought  is  supposed  to  be  breathed  in  the 
very  atmosphere?  How  can  educated  men  who  have  come  into  contact 
■with  modern  historical  and  scientific  knowledge  remain  so  imaffected  by  it? 
What  can  induce  them  to  abjure  the  right  to  think  for  themlseves?  The 
major  part  of  the  answer  is  that  the  Catholic  system  of  education  is  organized, 
from  the  infant  class  to  the  theological  seminary,  under  the  all-pervading 
aim  of  producing  obedience  as  a  permanent  frame  of  mind.  On  the  whole, 
the  system  secures  what  it  seeks.  It  produces  genuine  obedience,  not  merely 
the  pretense  of  it;  actual  conformity  in  thinking,  not  duplicity  or  self-division 
except  now  and  then;  submission  so  complete  as  to  be  practically  painless. 


CATHOLICISM  301 

until  the  child  has  a  religious  experience  that  requires  them  for 
its  expression;  they  are  not  reserved  even  until  the  child  can 
understand  them.  A  beginning  of  habituation  and  of  con- 
formity is  possible  even  in  advance  of  understanding  and  of 
experience.  "  In  the  primary  Sunday  school  grades,  the  main 
object  is  to  indelibly  fasten  on  the  memory  the  truths  of  faith, 
and  to  impart  such  explanation  as  the  young  mind  is  capable 
of  receiving.  It  might  be  said  that  it  is  mere  surface  work. 
The  chief  task  lies  in  giving  the  child  a  memory  grasp  of  Catholic 
doctrine.  It  is  an  all-important  achievement.  It  is  essential. 
One  need  not  care,  for  the  very  young,  how  parrot-like  may  be 
their  knowledge;  a  pervading  familiarity  with  the  text  is  the 
beginning  of  all  after  knowledge,  and  without  it  there  is  danger 
of  inaccurately  obtaining  it,  which  is  pernicious  in  the  extreme, 
and  which  is  worse  than  ignorance.  It  is  better  not  to  know 
in  these  momentous  matters  than  to  misstate."^  Since  exact 
conformity  is  the  end  sought,  the  stress  is  never  removed  from 
the  verbal  forms  in  which  the  Church  has  clothed  her  teachings. 
That  is,  habit-formation,  not  independent  judgment,  remains 
the  essence  of  the  method  to  the  very  end.  "  Children,  unless 
they  know  their  catechism  verbatim  may  be  said  to  have  no 
knowledge  of  it  whatever.  They  have  not  laid  that  foundation 
without  which  any  superstructure,  durable  or  fair  to  look  upon 
is,  if  not  absolutely  impossible,  at  least  so  difficult  as  to  demand 
superhuman  effort."  2 

(3)  Expression  from  the  pupil  takes  tJie  form  of  reproduction 
of  what  he  has  been  told  rather  than  that  of  "free  self-expression.'* 
If  we  desire  free  self-expression  from  the  pupil,  we  place  him 
in  a  situation  that  is  likely  to  call  forth  a  spontaneous  reac- 
tion that  is  of  worth,  one  that  will  help  him  to  find  himself,  and 
then  we  let  the  reaction  come — we  do  not  prescribe  it,  require  it, 
or  even  tell  the  pupil  in  advance  what  we  hope  for.  Hence  pu- 
pils' opinions,  likes  and  dislikes,  approvals  and  disapprovals, 
become  a  part  of  the  learning  process.  Or,  if  the  situation 
presents  a  problem  for  solution,  rather  than  an  object  to  be 
appreciated,  the  pupils'  work  will  show  doubts,  guesses,  tenta- 

1  Halpin.  p.  19.  » Ibid..  24. 


302  CATHOLICISM 

live  inferences,  very  likely  dissent  from  the  teacher,  but  also 
the  joy  of  discovering  something  for  oneself.  This  brief  and 
partial  statement  is  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  methods  of  self- 
expression.  Now,  when  we  examine  the  work  books  of  pupils 
from  carefully  managed  Catholic  Sunday  schools,  we  find  little 
of  this,  but  much  telling  back  of  what  the  teacher  or  the  text- 
book has  told.  The  purpose,  in  fact,  is  not  discovery,  not  train- 
ing the  pupil  to  see  for  himself  whether  or  not  the  truth  is  as 
it  is  said  to  be,  not  the  solution  of  problems  by  the  pupil. 
The  Church  has  already  solved  his  problems,  and  she  now  un- 
dertakes to  transfer  ready-made  solutions  to  him.  Hence  the 
pressure  of  the  school  upon  him  is  toward  the  most  accurate 
possible  reproduction  of  what  he  has  been  told.^ 

(4)  Gradation  of  material,  in  the  proper  sense  of  "gradation^* 
does  not  exist,  but  rather  fuller  and  fuller  treatment  of  the  same 
outline,  with  some  change  from  sensuous  to  logical  modes  of 
impression.  Pupils  are  graded  to  the  extent  of  being  arranged 
in  five,  six,  or  eight  age  groups.  The  grouping  is  determmed  to 
some  extent  by  the  pupil's  changing  relations  to  the  Church, 
as  his  first  communion  and  his  confirmation.  But  for  all  ages 
the  essential  content  of  instruction  is,  as  has  been  indicated 
already,  the  catechism.  The  catechism  is  the  curriculum.  It 
is,  of  course,  not  at  all  a  transcript  of  a  child's  spiritual  growth, 
but  a  thought  structure  built  by  adults  to  meet  certain  strains 
felt  by  adults.  Moreover,  the  order  in  which  it  is  presented  is 
not  determined  by  freely  picking  out  the  parts  that  have  the 
closest  relation  to  experience  at  this  or  that  age,  for  the  main 
outline  of  the  whole  is  presented  at  every  age.  One  writer, 
after  saying  that  during  each  year  of  his  Sunday  school  life  each 
child  should  study  or  review  in  regular  succession  "at  least  all 
the  fundamental  truths"  of  his  religion,  recommends  that  in 
all  the  grades  the  same  topic  be  studied  each  Sunday,  the  dif- 

1  That  this  is  characteristic  even  of  higher  classes  is  clear  from  Halpin's 
description  of  a  class  in  Higher  Catechism.  The  same  principle  of  method 
prevails  in  the  specific  training  for  the  priesthood  also.  When  we  act  upon 
the  assumption  that  the  function  of  reason  is  to  confirm  conclusions  already 
held  as  final,  we  may,  indeed,  grow  in  logical  nimbleness,  but  it  is  the  nimble- 
ness  of  habitual  co-ordinations  that  have  merely  extended  their  range  and 
thereby  sohdifled  themselves. 


CATHOLICISM  303 

ference  between  the  grades  being  simply  one  of  simplicity  and 
extent  of  the  material.  This  is  called  a  "graded  system," 
whereas  it  is  in  fact  a  uniform  system.^ 

At  first  this  abstract  material  is  presented  to  a  considerable 
extent  as  something  to  say  in  connection  with  a  particular  re- 
ligious act  which  the  teacher  takes  pains  to  have  the  child  per- 
form, or  as  a  statement  of  the  meaning  of  some  sensible  object 
connected  with  worship.  Later  the  catechism  meets  the  pupil 
as  a  system  to  be  grasped  as  one  interconnected  whole. 

The  early,  and  in  fact  never-ceasing  association  of  dogmas 
with  sensible  objects  and  with  particular  acts  of  devotion 
is  undoubtedly  effective  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  used. 
The  sense  of  reality  that  attaches  to  the  impressive  sights  and 
sounds  within  the  church,  and  to  the  acts  that  one  does  there, 
attaches  also,  under  the  laws  of  habit,  to  the  formulae  that  are 
used  in  connection  therewith.  What  I  and  the  other  wor- 
shippers are  doing,  what  the  priest  is  doing,  what  the  pictures, 
statues,  and  vestments  signif}^ — as  far  as  I  think  of  this  at  all 
(and  the  teacher  sees  to  it  that  I  do  think  of  it)  I  think  of  it 
in  the  terms  that  are  drilled  into  my  mind  by  repetition.  This 
is  what  it  all  is  to  me.  To  a  considerable  extent,  even  methods 
that  are  relatively  external  and  mechanical  have  this  result. 
But  when  spiritually  minded  teachers,  by  personal  example, 
and  by  careful  control  of  conditions,  produce  in  their  pupils 
the  emotions  of  awe  and  of  mystery,  some  real  penitence,  some 
real  joy  in  forgiveness,  some  fear  of  penalty  and  some  sense  of 
security  from  it,  and  withal  the  comfortable  realization  that  we 
know  how  to  be  safe  in  life  and  in  death,  then  pupils  tend  to 
identify  their  very  selves  with  the  system  that  imposes  itself 
upon  them. 

1  p.  J.  Sloan,  The  Sunday-School  Director's  Guide  to  Success.  New  York, 
1909. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  DOGMATIC  PROTESTANT  TYPE 

Within  Protestantism  various  educational  t3rpes  coeidst. 
It  is  not  possible  to  speak  of  "the"  Protestant  type  of  rehgious 
education  as  we  have  done  of  the  Cathohc  type.  For  not  only 
are  there  many  sorts  of  Protestantism,  but  within  each  Protes- 
tant body,  at  least  within  the  larger  bodies,  variety,  ferment, 
fresh  experimentation  are  characteristic,  and  consequently  at 
times  the  strain  of  conflicting  convictions.  Catholic  education 
is  a  close-knit  system;  Protestant  education  is  a  conglomerate, 
several  different  types  being  found  side  by  side,  even  within  the 
same  denomination.  To  speak  of  "the  dogmatic  Protestant 
type,"  therefore,  or  of  the  other  types  that  will  engage  our 
attention  in  the  following  chapters,  is  not  to  characterize  any 
denomination  by  a  single  educational  tendency.  It  will  be 
necessary  to  draw  examples  from  the  practices  or  from  the  official 
utterances  of  this  or  that  body,  it  is  true,  but  the  reader  should 
bear  in  mind  that  in  each  instance  a  single  item  has  been  taken 
from  a  group  of  jostling  tendencies.  It  should  be  noted,  more- 
over, that  such  terms  as  "dogmatic,"  "ritualistic,"  "evangel- 
ical," and  "liberal"  are  intended  to  be  descriptive  only;  they 
are  not  epithets  that  carry  either  approval  or  opprobrium.  For 
the  purpose  is  not  to  judge  theologies  or  forms  of  ecclesiastical 
life  as  such,  but  only  to  understand  the  educational  tendencies 
and  affiliations  that  belong  to  them. 

Comparison  of  the  dogmatic  Protestant  t3rpe  of  religious 
education  with  the  Catholic  type.  Protestant  education  is 
dogmatic  when  it  is  controlled  by  these  presuppositions:  That 
there  is  a  finite,  historical  organ  that  exercises  divine  authority 
upon  earth;  that  this  authority  imposes  upon  men  a  change- 
less faith  which  it  is  the  function  of  religious  education  to 

304 


DOGMATISM  305 

transmit;  and  that  education  transmits  it  primarily  in  the  form 
of  certain  propositions.  That  this  educational  point  of  view 
exists  in  large  Protestant  areas  needs  no  argument,  nor  is  the 
affinity  with  Catholicism  at  all  obscure. 

(1)  There  is  affinity  with  Catholic  education  to  the  extent  that 
external  authority  is  propagated  by  intellectual isiic  drill  processes. 
As  in  Catholicism,  so  in  much  Protestantism,  we  find  drill  upon 
set  formulae,  as  of  a  catechism;  the  persistent  use  of  doctrinal 
rather  than  descriptive  terms  for  experience,  both  the  experi- 
ences recorded  in  the  Bible  and  those  of  present-day  Christians; 
and  a  tendency,  which  will  be  exhibited  in  some  detail  in  a 
subsequent  section,  to  bend  the  curriculum  as  a  whole  to  the 
outlines  of  a  dogmatic  system.  If  this  were  the  end  of  the  mat- 
ter, an  educational  appraisement  of  it  would  be  easy.  But 
Protestant  dogmatism,  even  of  the  most  rigorous  sorts,  includes 
in  its  doctrines  certain  views  of  the  church,  of  the  Bible,  and  of 
the  religious  life  that  involve  decisive  modifications. 

(2)  But  the  Protestant  abnegation  of  all  claims  to  infallibility 
on  the  part  of  the  church  changes  the  relation  between  teacher  and 
pupil  from  that  of  commanding  and  obeying  to  that  of  helping  and 
being  helped,  which  makes  for  democracy.  The  Protestant  teacher, 
just  because  he  is  Protestant,  obligates  himself  to  regard  the 
pupil's  interests  and  modes  of  mental  assimilation.  If  Prot- 
estantism tends  to  prize  unduly  a  winsome  personality  in  a 
teacher,  nevertheless  the  social  tendency  even  of  this  is  toward 
friendliness  between  equals. 

(3)  The  ascription  of  authority  to  the  Bible  rather  than  to  the 
church  turns  attention  to  a  literature  that  is  predominantly  a  tran- 
script of  life  rather  than  a  body  of  doctrine.  Therefore  Protestant 
emphasis  upon  Bible  study  tends  to  counteract  Protestant  dogma- 
tism. The  Catholic  writer,  quoted  in  the  last  chapter,  who  con- 
trasted the  teaching  of  catechism  with  the  teaching  of  the 
Bible,  did  not  exaggerate  the  difference.  The  Bible  is  education- 
ally as  different  from  catechisms  as  the  affection  of  a  mother 
toward  her  baby  is  different  from  the  law  of  the  state  that  for- 
bids a  mother  to  let  her  offspring  starve.  And  the  more  objec- 
tive our  study  of  the  Bible  becomes,  the  more  it  gives  the  pupil 


306  DOGMATISM 

an  impression  of  moving  among  men  like  himself.  The  desire 
of  a  teacher  to  make  a  passage  interesting  or  vivid  lures  him 
toward  precisely  the  features  of  it  that  the  pupil  can  appre- 
ciate through  his  own  experience  and  observation.  It  is  true 
that  dogmatism,  phrasing  in  its  own  way  whatever  it  touches, 
and  insistent  upon  illustrating  its  own  convictions  by  ancient 
life  that  was  unconscious  of  them,  tends  constantly  to  depress 
the  vitality  of  Bible  study.  But  its  insistence  upon  the  Bible 
as  the  very  word  of  God  in  due  time  reacts  in  the  interest  of  life. 

(4)  The  intellectualism  of  dogmatic  teaching  is  further  Trwdijied 
by  efforts  to  induce  a  personal  religious  experience.  The  most 
dogmatic  Protestant  teaching,  in  the  same  breath  in  which  it 
assumes  that  certain  beliefs  are  essential  to  the  Christian  life, 
warns  the  pupil  that  he  can  be  spiritually  dead  even  though 
his  beliefs  are  perfectly  correct.  The  Catholic  child  is  taught 
that  he  can  be  saved  by  conformity;  the  Protestant  child  is 
told  the  exact  contrary.  The  Catholic  child  is  told  that  God 
is  present  in  the  mass;  the  Protestant  child  is  told  that  God's 
presence  is  to  be  discerned  In  the  heart.  We  shall  presently  dis- 
cover that  dogmatic  Protestantism  Is  restrained  from  reaping  the 
whole  educational  advantage  of  its  belief  in  Christian  experience. 
But  we  can  see  at  once  that  to  teach  the  pupil  to  establish  a 
direct  relation  between  himself  and  God,  a  relation  the  nature 
of  which  the  pupil  himself  judges,  is  to  turn  attention  once 
more  away  from  dogma  and  authority  toward  life  that  can  easily 
take  a  democratic  form. 

Protestant  dogmatism  camiot  accept  whole-heartedly  the 
principle  of  gradation  of  the  material  of  instruction.  We 
have  seen  that  Catholic  education  repeats  the  main  outlines  of 
Catholic  dogma  from  department  to  department  of  the  Sunday 
school.  This  is  necessary  because  the  end  to  be  attained  is 
utter  habituation  of  the  mind.  Protestant  dogmatism  tends 
in  the  same  direction,  but  for  the  reasons  that  have  just  been 
given,  is  not  so  thoroughgoing.  Here  is  the  meaning  of  the  half- 
acceptance,  half -rejection  of  graded  lessons  by  certain  Protes- 
tant bodies.  The  fundamental  idea  of  gradation  is  that  the 
pupil  is  to  grow  from  within;   dogmatism  desires  the  pupil  to 


DOGMATISM  307 

conform  increasingly  to  something  tliat  is  without.  Growth  from 
within  presupposes  freedom,  and  it  invites  variation.  To  pro- 
vide for  growth  is  to  furnish  changing  sorts  of  food  as  capacity 
for  assimilation  changes;  it  is  to  feed  spontaneous  interests 
as  they  arise.  Habit-formation  is  involved  here,  of  course,  but 
also  the  free  variation  toward  which  dogmatism  is  necessarily 
apprehensive.  True  gradation  of  material  aims  to  call  into 
play  whatever  capacity  for  judgment  and  discovery  the  pupil 
has,  and  by  exercising  this  capacity  at  its  various  levels  of 
growth  to  bring  it  finally  to  maturity.  Whole-hearted  dogma- 
tism like  that  of  the  Catholic  Church  will  have  none  of  this; 
the  modified  dogmatism  of  some  Protestants  fears  and  opposes 
it,  but  from  no  defined  or  definable  educational  standpoint  that 
can  satisfy  the  other  demands  of  Protestantism  even  of  the 
dogmatic  type.^ 

No  oflftcial  body  has  been  at  greater  pains  to  state  the  issues 
here  involved  than  certain  committees  that  reported  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States 
of  America,  in  1913.  Let  us  ask,  then,  what  conceptions  of 
education  are  here  expressed  or  implied,  first  premising  on  our 
own  part  that  our  quest  is  not  to  determine  the  educational 
status  of  an  ecclesiastical  body,  but  solely  to  understand  educa- 

1  The  Sunday-School  Committee  of  the  General  Synod  of  the  Evangelical 
Lutheran  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America,  in  a  report  made  in  1913 
criticises  "the  forced  pedagogical  theory  that  the  child  itself  is  the  centre 
around  which  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  must  adjust  itself  at  no  matter  whab 
sacrifice  of  truth.  We  strongly  advocate  a  system  of  graded  lessons,"  the 
report  continues,  "but  the  whole  spirit  and  the  doctrinal  position  of  our 
Church  is  against  a  system  of  grading  which  seeks  merely  to  interest  the  child 
by  fanciful  and  far-fetched  interpretations  of  Scripture,  by  attempting  to  catch 
the  child  by  making  the  stories  of  the  Bible  simple  myths,  by  extra-biblical 
lessons  from  nature,  from  Ufe,  from  history.  .  .  .  We  are  persuaded  that  in 
the  Church,  as  in  the  family,  strong  Christian  men  and  women  are  made  of 
the  children,  not  by  giving  them  always  what  they  want  and  what  win  enter- 
tain them,  but  what  they  need."  See  Proceedings  of  the  General  Synod,  1913. 
pp.  114-117.  The  real  issues  here  involved  would  have  been  far  more  sharply 
drawn  if  the  report  had  been  a  little  more  accurate  and  a  little  more  thorough 
in  its  contrast  between  the  theory  that  "the  child  itself  is  the  centre"  and  the 
theory  that  children  are  best  educated  by  "giving  them  what  they  need." 
What  we  have  here  is  first,  a  misleading  caricature  of  the  doctrine  of  interest, 
with  no  recognition  of  any  truth  at  all  in  it,  and  second,  an  ambiguous  ref- 
erence to  what  children  need.  If  the  ambiguity  were  cleared  up,  "what  the 
children  need"  would  turn  out  to  be,  of  course,  some  adult  point  of  view 
to  which  the  children  are  expected  to  conform. 


308  DOGMATISM 

tlonal  tendencies  that  are  inherent  in  a  certain  type  of  Prot- 
estant thought  and  practice.  First,  then,  we  find  approval 
of  graded  lessons.  The  Standing  Committee  on  the  Board  of 
Publication  and  Sabbath-School  Work  "heartily  approves  of 
the  general  plan  of  graded  lessons  for  use  in  churches  preferring 
them  to  the  Uniform  Series."^  But  a  conviction  is  expressed 
that  "the  present  lesson  helps  in  the  graded  system  may  be 
substantially  improved,"  and  the  following  principles  are  offered 
for  guidance  in  a  proposed  revision  of  certain  parts  and  new 
publication  in  others: 

(1)  Simplicity  of  expression  and  clearness  of  definition.  (2) 
Complete  harmony,  in  all  exposition  and  definition,  with  the  sys- 
tem of  evangelical  faith  accepted  by  our  Presbyterian  Chm*eh; 
and  especially  with  regard  to  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures as  the  supreme  revelation  of  God,  the  deity  of  Jesus  Christ 
as  God  in  the  flesh,  coequal  with  the  Father  and  coeternal,  the  in- 
herent sinfulness  of  human  nature  and  the  consequent  need  of  a 
spiritual  regeneration,  and  the  atoning  merit  of  Christ  as  a  Saviour 
from  sin.  And,  further,  that  in  the  use  of  extra-biblical  lessons,  the 
honor  of  the  Scriptures  be  maintained  in  this  way :  Where  so-called 
"nature  studies"  or  "stories"  are  used  in  the  earlier  grades  (be- 
ginners, primary  and  junior)  they  are  to  be  used  in  connection 
with  definite  selections  of  Scripture,  and  then  only  in  the  form 
of  pictures  or  emblems  to  illustrate  moral  or  spiritual  truths; 
and  that  in  the  use  of  biography  or  history,  or  ethics  or  social 
science,  a  definite  portion  of  Scripture  be  used  as  a  basis  of  the 
lesson,  the  biography  or  historical  event  or  principle  of  ethics 
or  of  social  science  being  used  to  illustrate  the  Word  of  God  and 
confirm  its  fundamental  teachings. 

The  last  clause  is  an  almost  exact  reproduction  of  the  scho- 
lastic conception  of  education.  Each  study  is  conceived  of, 
not  as  an  unforced  exercise  of  intelligence  and  conscience  upon  a 
given  piece  of  human  experience,  not  as  a  means  of  developing 
judgment  and  power  to  discover,  but  as  a  means  of  illustrating 

1  Report  presented  to  and  approved  by  the  General  Assembly  at  Atlanta, 
May  21,  1913. 


DOGMATISM  309 

and  confirming  certain  fixed  teachings — In  this  case  certain  in- 
terpretations of  Scripture. 

The  relation  between  "complete  harmony"  with  the  ac- 
cepted system  of  evangelical  faith  and  the  theory  of  gradation 
is  revealed  more  distinctly  in  another  report  made  to  the  same 
General  Assembly  by  a  Special  Committee  on  Graded  Lessons. 

We  recommend  the  revision  of  the  Beginners',  Primary,  ami 
Junior  Lesson  Helps  so  as  to  express  with  greater  clearness  the 
fundamental  Scripture  doctrines.  ...  (1)  The  Scriptures  as  an 
authoritative  revelation  from  God.  (2)  The  sinfulness  of  human 
nature  and  the  need  of  regeneration.  (3)  The  atonement  offered 
by  Jesus  Christ. 

Here  we  have  a  perfectly  explicit  proposal  to  teach  the  In- 
dicated dogmas  to  children  from  four  to  twelve  years  of  age. 
The  child  is  to  be  bent  to  the  material  by  a  process  of  reiteration 
as  in  Catholic  education. 

The  committee  goes  on  to  express  dissatisfaction  with  the 
view  of  religious  growth  that  is  stated  in  one  of  the  books  for 
teachers;  the  view,  in  a  word,  that  the  child's  spiritual  life  may 
be  made  continuous,  so  that  conversion,  as  it  is  ordinai'ily 
understood,  will  not  be  necessary.  Inasmuch  as  the  committee 
intimates  that  this  may  occur  under  favorable  conditions,  though 
only  through  the  regenerating  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  we 
might  expect  the  committee  to  indicate  some  possible  conception 
of  how  the  divine  Spirit  might  use  the  educative  process  as  a 
whole.  Instead  the  committee  desires  to  have  incorporated  in 
the  "Forewords"  and  in  the  instructions  to  teachers  "sugges- 
tions on  the  best  methods  of  leading  scholars  to  Christ."  The 
tendency  here  manifested  to  add  religious  appeal  to  educative 
processes  instead  of  making  these  processes  themselves,  all  of 
them,  religiously  vital,  is  an  inevitable  corollary  of  the  in- 
tellectualistic,  because  dogmatic,  approach  to  the  curriculum. 
When  teaching  is  conceived  primarily  as  instruction  in  dogmas, 
something  has  to  be  added,  of  course,  in  the  interest  of  religious 
living.  To  this  dualism  in  religious  education  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  return  in  a  later  section. 


310  DOGMATISM 

The  dogmatic  Protestant  type  tends  to  separate  religious 
life  from  religious  instruction.  We  have  just  now  touched 
upon  an  instance  in  which,  after  recommending  that  certain  dog- 
mas be  taught  to  children  of  four  to  twelve  years,  a  committee 
advises  also  that  the  teachers  be  instructed  in  "  the  best  methods 
of  leading  scholars  to  Christ.'^  Here  "coming  to  Christ"  is 
treated  as  a  thing  by  itself,  and  not  involved  in  religious  instruc- 
tion as  such.  This  type  of  educational  thinking  goes  on,  more- 
over, to  separate  training  in  the  duties  of  the  Christian  life 
from  both  instruction  and  coming  to  Christ.  "Surely,"  says 
the  committee,  "the  prime  object  of  the  Sunday  school  is  to 
lead  the  scholars  to  Christ  the  Saviour,  and  then  to  train  them 
in  the  Christian  life  with  its  privileges  and  duties."  "And 
then''  to  train  them  in  the  practice  of  religion.  The  entire 
scheme  includes,  it  now  appears,  three  stages  or  parts:  Firsts 
drill  in  the  dogmas;  Second,  leading  to  Christ;  Third,  training 
in  Christian  living.  Here  we  have  simply  one  thing  added  to 
another — first  beliefs  that  are  not  acts  of  consecration,  then  a 
kind  of  omnibus  surrender  to  Christ,  then  Christian  living  in  the 
world. 

In  the  background  of  this  scheme  is  the  fundamental  assump- 
tion that  knowledge  or  thought  is  a  thing  per  se  that  is  to  be 
applied  by  the  will,  which  is  another  thing  per  se.  Moreover, 
the  will  is  taken  as  a  general  or  abstract  entity  apart  from  the 
particular  desires  and  purposes  that  spring  up  in  one's  experi- 
ence of  human  society.  Hence  the  great  choice  of  Christ,  the 
major  loyalty  that  is  aimed  at,  is  treated  as  an  event  or  experi- 
ence by  itself,  and  duties  to  one's  fellows  as  a  distinct  and  sub- 
sequent thing. 

If  these  underlying  assumptions  of  dogmatic  religious  educa- 
tion are  mistaken;  if  thought  itself  is  a  phase  of  active  adjust- 
ment to  the  conditions  of  life,  so  that  religious  beliefs  held  ante- 
cedently to  religious  living  are  only  pseudo-thinking;  if,  further, 
the  will  comes  to  itself  in  and  through  particular  social  inter- 
actions, not  antecedently  thereto,  then,  if  we  are  to  have  a  vital 
and  organically  unified  religious  education,  we  must  begin  with 
the  formation  of  a  social  will  through  the  performance  of  par- 


DOGMATISM  311 

ticular  social  acts  out  of  which  may  grow  Christian  social 
habits;  we  must  go  on  to  make  these  practices  thinking  reac- 
tions— a  discriminative,  foresighted,  information-seeking  Chris- 
tian faith;  through  practice  of  the  lesser  consecrations  we  must 
develop  power  for  the  larger  ones,  and  through  the  experienced 
validity  of  the  Christian  purpose  in  social  action,  we  must  reach 
the  heights  and  the  depths  of  Christian  belief.  Leading  pupils 
to  Christ  will  then  no  longer  be  separated  from,  but  fused  with, 
leading  them  into  Christlike  social  living.  Thus  the  pupil's 
social  experience  under  the  leadership  of  Christ  will  be  no  "  and 
then,"  no  department  of  religious  education,  but  the  very  lungs 
with  which  religious  nurture  draws  in  the  breath  of  its  life. 

Social  tendencies  of  the  dogmatic  Protestant  type  of 
religious  education.  Any  complete  inventory  of  the  social 
tendencies  of  the  type  of  religious  education  that  has  now  been 
described  would  have  to  include  a  survey  of  the  social  content 
of  the  systems  of  doctrine  that  are  in  control  in  various  de- 
nominations or  Sunday  schools.  What  level  of  sociality  is 
reflected  in  the  idea  of  God  that  is  taught  to  the  children? 
In  the  conception  of  sin  ?  In  the  notion  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ? 
In  the  particular  duties  that  are  inculcated?  In  the  standards 
of  church  life?  Obviously  such  a  survey  is  impossible  in  this 
place.  The  most  that  can  be  done  is  to  analyze  social  tendencies 
that  are  inherent  in  the  dogmatic  point  of  view  as  it  is  held  in 
common  by  various  sorts  of  Protestants,  and  in  practices  that 
are  common. 

(1)  Teaching  the  child  that  he  stands  in  direct  relations  to  God, 
that  isy  relations  not  necessarily  mediated  by  priest  or  by  church, 
tends  to  liberate  the  mind  from  all  tyrannies,  spiritual  and  political. 
This  teaching  as  to  the  accessibility  of  God  is,  of  course,  not  dis- 
tinctive of  any  single  type  of  Protestantism;  it  is  a  common 
Protestant  conviction.  It  is  mentioned  here  in  connection  with 
the  dogmatic  type  of  Protestantism  because,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  dogmatism  here  limits  itself,  actually  renounces  the  ab- 
solutism, which  in  practice  is  the  autocratic  rule,  that  character- 
izes Catholic  education.  When  we  tell  a  child  that  he  can  carry 
everythmg  in  his  own  way  directly  to  a  God  who  will  fully  under- 


312  DOGMATISM 

stand,  we  invite  a  human  being  to  think  of  everything  from  the 
divine  point  of  view  that  develops  in  his  own  mind  as  he  prays. 
From  the  judgments  that  thus  arise  the  church  and  its  dogmas 
have  no  ultimate  immunity.  To  peoples  and  classes  that  have 
been  touched  by  this  Protestant  teaching,  God  is  a  refuge  and 
strength  against  all  oppression.  The  struggle  for  liberty,  re- 
ligious, political,  or  economic,  is  sanctified;  it  becomes,  not  the 
impiety  of  mere  revolt  against  social  order,  not  the  letting  loose 
of  class  hatred,  but  a  solemn  consecration  to  the  eternal  purpose 
of  the  world.  The  possibilities  that  lie  open  in  this  direction 
are,  however,  seriously  limited  by  other  parts  of  the  dogmatic 
scheme. 

(2)  But  the  lack  of  social  deliberation  tends  to  isolate  the  in- 
dividual, and  to  open  the  way  for  indimdualistic  conceptions  of 
duty.  The  dogmatic  t^^pe  of  education  causes  the  pupil  to  be- 
come orthodox  by  a  process  of  habituation,  not  by  the  give-and- 
take  of  a  group  of  inquiring  minds.  Real  deliberation  of  a  social 
sort  upon  doctrine  was  finished  in  some  council  of  long  ago.  The 
individual  of  to-day  can  make  his  complete  response  to  instruc- 
tion, can  become  and  remain  orthodox,  without  a  single  act  of 
co-operation  with  anybody. 

This  tendency  to  isolation  does  not  stop  with  beliefs.  For 
dogmatism  teaches  duties  also  by  authority,  either  the  authority 
of  a  command  that  is  supposed  to  have  been  directly  revealed, 
or  that  of  an  inference  drawn  from  an  authoritative  doctrine. 
The  result  is  a  set  of  rules  or  of  sentiments  where  there  should 
be  training  in  the  analysis  of  social  relations  and  in  co-operative 
work  for  improving  them.  One  can  hold  the  rule  or  feel  the 
sentiment  in  isolation.  Hence,  in  part,  the  amount  of  non- 
cohesive,  non-co-operative,  socially  ineffective  goodness  among 
church  members. 

Nor  is  this  the  end  of  the  matter.  In  the  absence  of  social 
deliberation  upon  the  meaning  and  the  ends  of  life,  there  is 
no  adequate  check  to  self-deception  with  respect  to  the  issues 
involved  in  our  social  conflicts  and  in  our  social  aspirations. 
Many  a  man  who  is  devotedly  religious  is  stiff-necked  in  social 
relations  simply  because  in  early  life  he  was  taught  rules  when 


DOGMATISM  313 

he  should  have  learned  the  lesson  of  conferring  with  one's  fel- 
lows whenever  their  interests  are  involved.  Christians  of  this 
sort  are  accustomed  to  stand  upon  tlicir  rights,  that  is,  upon 
precedents  that  give  them  some  individualistic  advantage; 
therefore  such  Christians  let  social  wrongs  also  follow  precedent. 
It  is  not  uncommon — is  it  not  in  the  natural  order  of  things  ? — 
for  stiff  economic  and  political  conservatism  to  be  united  in 
the  same  person  with  intense  dogmatic  religion,  and  to  fuid  sup- 
port therein. 

(3)  To  make  the  Bible  the  'practically  exclusive  source  of  ma- 
terial is  to  keep  the  attention  of  pupils  fixed  upon  prcdemocratic 
social  conditions.  Through  the  material  of  the  curriculum  we 
lead  the  pupil  to  notice  and  appreciate  standards  of  human 
goodness,  and  to  think  of  these  standards  as  the  will  of  God. 
If,  now,  the  curriculum  takes  its  instances  of  goodness  from 
tribal  relations,  and  from  life  under  monarchical  nationalism; 
if  the  virtues  of  the  warrior  are  often  to  the  fore,  while  the  vir- 
tues of  a  free  citizenship  have  not  as  yet  even  dawned  upon  the 
horizon  of  the  good  man's  hopes;  if  loving-kindness  must  still 
express  itself  almost  exclusively  in  the  narrower  personal  re- 
lations and  in  relief,  while  causes  of  wide-spread  woe  remain  un- 
guessed  and  unsought  for;  if  social  justice,  though  hot  against 
those  who  profit  by  the  exploitation  of  human  beings,  sees  no 
way  to  endow  the  exploited  with  civil  authority  to  control  the 
conditions  of  the  common  life;  if  the  democratic  spirit,  as  far 
as  it  is  present  at  all  in  individuals,  finds  no  way  to  organize 
itself  politically,  or  even  to  conceive  of  a  civil  state  through 
which  it  could  utter  itself — if  the  curriculum  has  such  a  limited 
outlook  upon  Christian  character,  how  can  it  present,  without 
stammering  and  without  ambiguity,  the  fully  Christian  ideals 
of  a  democracy  of  God  ? 

It  is  true  that  even  the  crude  social  conditions  of  early  He- 
brew history  and  legend  yield  nuggets  of  gold  for  the  religious 
teacher.  Nothing,  perhaps,  more  effectively  assists  in  the 
analysis  of  certain  simple  relations  between  individuals,  and  of 
certain  relations  within  the  family,  than  some  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment stories.     There  is,  moreover,  no  absolute  break  between 


314  DOGMATISM 

the  virtues  of  a  hospitable  sheik,  or  those  of  a  generous-hearted 
mountain  chieftain,  and  the  virtues  of  a  citizen  when  he  votes 
to  tax  himself  for  the  improvement  of  the  public  schools. 
Nevertheless  there  are  two  unescapable  limitations  upon  the 
Old  Testament  as  curriculum  material  for  the  development  of 
intelligent  Christian  purpose: 

(a)  The  characters  and  the  incidents  of  the  Old  Testament 
that  can  be  used  to  advantage  have  to  be  selected  out  of  a  mass 
that  contains,  because  of  the  level  of  the  whole,  much  unusable 
material.  Even  in  circles  that  are  controlled  by  the  doctrine 
that  every  word  of  the  Bible  is  infallible  divine  revelation,  such 
selection  has  already  gone  far.  There  is  discreet  hesitation  to 
take  upon  Christian  lips  many  a  word  and  sentiment  that  are 
said  to  be  the  word  and  the  sentiment  of  God.  There  is  a 
tacit  understanding  that  tender  minds  shall  be  shielded  from 
much  of  the  moral  crudity  from  which  Yahweh  is  not  repre- 
sented as  shrinking  at  all.  But  the  selection  must  be  much  more 
rigorous  than  it  is  at  present  if  the  formation  of  really  Christian 
standards  of  life  and  really  Christian  conceptions  of  God  is  to 
be  our  dominating  purpose. 

(6)  Even  the  Old  Testament  worthies  with  whom  we  are 
glad  to  have  the  children  keep  company,  will  have  to  be  used 
negatively,  as  well  as  positively,  that  is,  to  point  what  is  not 
Christian  as  well  as  what  is.  So  will  their  notions  of  Yahweh 
illuminate  the  character  of  God  by  contrast.  Their  virtues  and 
their  faith  in  God  both  reflect  the  social  assumptions  of  their 
time.  It  is  by  measuring  these  men  by  the  standards  of  their 
time,  in  fact,  that  we  learn  how  great  they  were.  When  we 
idealize  them  as  though  they  were  true  Christians  we  gain  noth- 
ing, and  we  lose  an  opportunity  for  making  Christian  standards 
clear  by  contrast  with  these  earlier  and  lower  levels  of  society. 
It  is  necessary  to  be  on  our  guard  lest  pre-Christian  conceptions 
of  God  become  a  part  of  a  child's  faith  when  he  listens  to  the 
beautiful  Old  Testament  stories.  In  fact,  only  in  the  greatest 
utterances  of  the  greatest  of  the  prophets  do  we  find  the  dis- 
tinctively Christian  consciousness  of  God  emerging. 

The  spirit  of  Jesus,  in  short,  is  the  social  standard  by  which 


DOGMATISM  315 

everything  else  in  the  Bible  is  to  be  weighed  and  measured.  The 
spirit  of  Jesus.  Here  a  distinction  is  necessary  with  respect 
to  the  educational  use  of  the  New  Testament.  Jesus,  too,  died 
without  having  witnessed  a  single  instance  of  political  enfran- 
chisement in  the  democratic  sense.  Apparently  he  did  not 
foresee  the  possibility  that  brotherhood  should  achieve  a  non- 
paternalistic  expression  in  the  civil  state.  We  look  to  him  in 
vain  for  political  wisdom — that  is,  guidance  with  respect  to 
how  to  organize  the  good  will  in  an  effective  social  order.  So 
obvious  is  this  that  our  leaders  have  many  times  warned  us  that 
Jesus  was  not  a  teacher  of  economics  or  of  politics  or  of  sociology, 
just  as  they  have  warned  us  also  that  following  Jesus  is  not  the 
same  as  imitating  him,  as  with  respect  to  celibacy,  for  example. 
The  social  leadership  of  Jesus  resides  in  his  spirit  of  social  good 
will,  his  simple  appreciation  of  every  one  as  a  neighbor,  his  trust 
that  God,  who  is  love,  will  not  let  us  go  until  we  have  become  a 
brotherhood.  Here  brotherly  love  is  all  one  with  faith  and  hope. 
The  most  daring  and  the  most  unflinching  social  teaching  will 
never  cease  to  look  back  to  Jesus.  But  if  it  sees  Jesus  it  will 
look,  with  him,  to  the  future.  It  will  breathe  his  spirit,  but  it 
will  not  stop  with  his  words.  "  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say 
unto  you,"  the  Fourth  Gospel  reports  him  as  saying,  "but  ye 
cannot  bear  them  now."  The  spirit  of  Jesus  is  so  forward- 
looking,  so  creative,  so  inexhaustible  that  the  Bible  cannot 
possibly  be  a  sufficient  text-book  of  Christian  living.  To  tie 
religious  education  down  to  it,  as  dogmatism  desires  to  do, 
would  make  us  like  those  who  are  ever  learning  but  never  able 
to  come  to  the  truth — ever  learning  to  love,  but  ever  permitting 
the  social  order  to  defeat  love. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  RITUALISTIC  PROTESTANT  TYPE 

Fundamental  characteristics  of  the  type.  By  the  ritualistic 
type  of  Christian  education  is  meant  that  which  lays  particular 
emphasis  upon  the  pupil's  relation  to  the  church  as  a  society 
that  worships  by  prescribed  forms.  Though  this  characteriza- 
tion lacks  the  precision  of  an  exact  boundary-line,  and  though 
it  does  not  suffice  to  describe  the  whole  educational  life  of  any 
Christian  body,  it  does,  nevertheless,  identify  a  particular  ten- 
dency that  exists  in  various  bodies.  In  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  to  take  the  most  obvious  example,  we  find  relig- 
ious education  conditioned  fundamentally  by  the  fact  that  every 
baptized  infant  is,  by  virtue  of  his  baptism,  a  member  of  the 
church.  It  follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  aim  of  relig- 
ious nurture  is  to  help  the  child  to  realize  increasingly  the  mean- 
ing of  this  already  existing  relation,  and  to  perform  more  and 
more  the  acts  that  it  entails,  until  the  full  stature  of  a  churchman 
is  reached.  The  meaning  of  the  whole  is  set  forth  briefly  in 
the  creed,  and  it  is  expanded  in  the  catechism.  The  acts  are 
predominantly  those  of  worship  as  it  is  prescribed  in  the  prayer- 
book.  Acts  of  churchmanship  broaden  out,  of  course,  into 
ecclesiastical  enterprises  like  missions,  and  the  part  of  the  creed 
that  refers  to  the  church  expands  into  an  interpretation  of 
ecclesiastical  history.  Here,  then,  are  two  currents  that  flow 
side  by  side — training  in  a  definite  set  of  religious  acts,  and 
instruction  in  a  definite  set  of  beliefs.  Rather,  here  are  two 
phases  of  a  single  process  for  leading  the  pupil  into  greater  and 
greater  participation  in  a  religious  fellowship.  For  doctrine 
is  presented  specifically  as  church  doctrine,  not  as  a  reasoned 
philosophy,  not  even  as  exegesis  of  the  Bible. 

316 


RITUALISM  317 

Let  us  call  these  two  phases  of  churchmanshlp  doctrine  and 
worship.  Each  is  susceptible  of  variant  interpretations  that 
lead  to  variations  in  educational  practice.  Thus,  on  the  side 
of  doctrine  there  may  be  a  close  approach  to  the  dogmatic  type 
of  religious  teaching,  or  there  may  be  wide  divergence  from  it. 
Teaching  of  catechism  that  insists  upon  the  literal  truth  of 
traditional  doctrines  moves  toward  dogmatism;  but  when 
doctrines  are  treated  as  symbols  of  the  church  fellowship,  or  as 
mental  pictures  that  assist  in  producing  a  devotional  frame  of 
mind,  the  movement  is  away  from  the  dogmatic  type.  All  in 
all,  the  ritualistic  type  tends  to  exalt  the  organic  life  or  fellow- 
ship of  the  church,  and  for  this  reason  great  latitude  with  re- 
spect to  theological  thought  becomes  natural.  Therefore  the 
educational  tendency  that  we  are  now  considering  takes  far 
less  concern  for  the  orthodoxy  of  the  pupil  than  for  his  religious 
practices. 

On  the  side  of  worship  the  variations  range  all  the  way  from 
the  mass,  an  act  wrought  by  the  priest  for  the  people,  to  the 
cultivation  of  the  evangelical  type  of  conversion,  in  which  the 
individual  realizes  God  without  priestly  intervention.  The 
church  as  teacher,  accordingly,  may  take  the  attitude  of  an 
authority  that  requires  conformity  because  it  is  the  official 
agent  of  God  upon  earth,  or  that  of  a  group  of  friends  who  would 
share  their  treasures  with  children,  or  it  may  take  an  interme- 
diate position  like  that  of  the  family,  a  group  with  common  in- 
terests that  are  pursued  in  common,  a  group  that  educates  pre- 
cisely by  the  community  of  the  younger  and  the  older  members. 

Some  educational  advantages  of  the  ritualistic  point  of 
view.  (1)  The  church  and  its  services  offer  material  of  instruc- 
tion that  the  pupil  can  experience  as  present  and  concrete.  The 
church  building  and  its  furniture,  to  begin  with,  meet  the  pupil 
as  a  visible  expression  of  religion.  Here  is  the  font  at  which  he 
was  baptized,  for  example.  It  becomes,  in  due  time,  a  means  of 
teaching  him  that  he  is  a  member  of  the  church  and  a  child  of 
God.  Here  is  the  sanctuary  that  contains  the  cup  out  of  which 
he  will  drink  at  his  first  communion;  here  is  where  the  bishop 
will  sit  when  he  comes  to  confirm  you.     So  with  a  large  number 


318  RITUALISM 

of  objects.  In  this  way  the  church  building  and  its  furniture 
can  be  used  also  for  introducing  some  analysis  of  the  parts  of 
the  morning  and  the  evening  service.  The  prayer-book  itself 
then  becomes  another  piece  of  concrete  material,  interesting,  if 
for  no  other  reason,  because  it  is  associated  with  pew  and  kneel- 
ing-stool  and  chancel,  but  interesting  also  because  it  now  be- 
comes a  guide  to  things  that  are  to  be  done  by  the  child  himself. 
Next  comes  the  use  of  the  Christian  festivals — the  Christian 
year — as  concrete  teaching  material.  The  day  schools  have 
only  begun  to  realize  the  educational  possibilities  of  our  na- 
tional festivals,  but  the  Christian  festivals  have  been  effectively 
used  for  centuries  as  a  method  of  popular  instruction  in  Scrip- 
ture story  and  church  doctrine. 

(2)  Small  children  are  fond  of  action  and  of  repetition.  When 
to  the  sensuous  impressiveness  of  a  churchly  interior,  music, 
vestments,  processional,  and  responsive  actions  of  priest,  choir, 
and  congregation,  we  add  opportunity  to  take  an  active  part  in 
the  whole,  important  conditions  of  a  child's  interest  are  met. 
This  is  true  even  if  the  part  be  nothing  more  than  standing  or 
kneeling  or  saying  "  Amen"  at  the  right  point.  Here  are  pray- 
ers to  be  committed  to  memory  because  they  are  to  be  used. 
One  must  learn  to  find  the  place  in  the  prayer-book  because  it 
too  is  to  be  used.  Repetition  also  fits  in  with  children's  spon- 
taneous ways.  Children  are  sometimes  said  to  be  little  ritual- 
ists by  nature.  They  want  the  favorite  story  told  again  and 
again,  and  they  prefer  to  have  it  unchanged.^  They  enjoy 
repeating  nonsense  rhymes.  They  invent  and  hand  down  from 
one  generation  of  children  to  another  essentially  ritualistic  ways 
of  conducting  parts  of  their  plays,  as  "counting  out»"  They 
devise  secret  symbols  and  artificial  languages  to  be  used  among 
themselves.  They  like  to  repeat  the  same  evening  prayer, 
and  to  turn  it  into  a  singsong.  The  explanation  of  this  fond- 
ness for  ritualism  is  to  be  found  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  the  re- 
currence of  a  familiar  thing  to  which  one  has  been  able  to  make 

1 1  was  once  telling  to  two  children,  aged  respectively  three  and  five,  a  story 
that  they  had  already  heard,  when  I  inadvertently  changed  the  word  "kind" 
to  "good."  Instantly  the  younger  child  interposed  "kind"  with  some 
vehemence,  and  the  five-year  old  seconded  the  amendment  vociferously. 


RITUALISM  319 

adjustment  in  the  past  produces  a  sense  of  being  equal  to  the 
occasion.  In  a  small  child's  world  there  are  so  many  things 
that  are  uncontrollable  and  unpredictable,  so  many  confusing 
situations,  that  there  is  positive  satisfaction  when  he  can  know 
"just  what  comes  next."  To  master  a  religious  ritual,  conse- 
quently, brings  satisfaction  even  regardless  of  the  particular 
significance  of  the  content. 

(3)  Many  adolescents  welcome  symbols  for  longings  that  they 
are  not  as  yet  able  to  understand.  When  adolescence  approaches, 
one  may  react  from  that  which  is  familiar  and  ordinary,  desir- 
ing something  different  and  fresh.  But  now  an  entirely  con- 
trary tendency  is  likely  to  set  in,  a  tendency  which,  though  it  is 
the  opposite  of  childhood's  liking  for  the  familiar,  nevertheless 
reinforces  the  influence  of  the  ritual.  For  adolescence  not 
seldom  brings  idealistic  longings  that  crave  expression  though 
they  cannot  as  yet  define  themselves.  Symbols  offer  one  mode 
of  expression,  especially  symbols  that  are  stately  and  sounding, 
but  not  too  literal.  What  is  ancient,  somewhat  apart  from  the 
common  day,  to  be  used  in  common  but  not  to  be  too  familiarly 
talked  about — this  offers,  so  to  say,  a  large  and  dimly  lighted 
room  in  which  the  adolescent  self  can  walk  forth  with  other 
souls  without  being  too  closely  interrogated  as  to  who  or  what 
it  is. 

(4)  The  assumption  that  the  pupil  is  already  a  member  of  an 
important  group  that  includes  adults  can  be  used  as  an  incentive 
to  study  and  to  social  growth.  Under  ritualistic  presuppositions 
the  pupil  will  not  be  treated  as  a  mere  individual,  or  merely  as 
one  of  the  social  class  "  children."  Teaching  will  rarely  if  ever 
consist  exclusively  in  bringing  together  a  child  mind  and  a  piece 
of  abstract  information.  Interfused  with  every  process  and  with 
every  piece  of  material  will  be  some  relation  that  is  to  be  ful- 
filled between  the  pupil  and  the  group  to  which  he  belongs.  A 
direct  motive  for  fulfilling  it  will  grow  out  of  the  fact  that  he 
belongs  to  the  same  society  as  the  most  dignified  adult.  The 
church  is  "our"  church,  the  pastor  is  "my"  pastor  as  much  as 
anybody's.  The  creed  is  what  "we"  believe  much  more  than  it 
is  what  "  I "  believe.     If  this  did  nothing  more  for  a  child  than 


320  RITUALISM 

give  him  some  little  sense  of  his  own  dignity,  or  produce  a  little 
genuine  reverence,  it  would  be  worth  while.  But  it  can  be 
used  by  the  teacher  as  an  interesting  approach  to  various  parts 
of  the  subject-matter.  Just  as  the  expectation  of  going  on  a 
journey  next  week  through  a  given  part  of  the  country  makes 
the  geography  of  it  all  alive  to  a  child,  so  the  prospect  of  hav- 
ing a  new  part  with  grown-ups  in  their  enterprises  makes  the 
enterprises  themselves  significant,  even  enables  a  child  to  feel 
motives  that  might  have  had  no  other  entrance  into  his  feelings. 
But  more  than  this;  the  teacher  can  use  the  child's  social  con- 
nection with  adults  in  the  church  as  specific  material  for  the 
teaching  of  social  relations  and  for  the  development  of  partic- 
ular social  habits.  Much  of  the  peculiar  power  of  the  family 
in  social  education  might  conceivably  be  achieved  by  a  warm 
and  well  organized  church  fellowship. 

Some  pitfalls  of  ritualistic  education.  We  have  seen  that 
ritualistic  tendencies  in  education  have  two  phases,  teaching  of 
creed  and  catechism,  and  training  in  worship.  In  both  direc- 
tions dangers  appear. 

(1)  When  the  meaning  of  the  church  fellowship  is  found  in  an 
ancient  symbol  instead  of  in  a  common,  forward-looking  purpose, 
there  is  danger  that  instruction  will  be  cither  dogmatic,  or  else 
of  the  shallow,  memoriter  sort.  Before  me  lies  A  Fundamental 
Catechism,^  intended  for  children  from  six  to  twelve  years  of  age, 
which  has  precisely  the  marks,  already  stated  in  earlier  chapters, 
of  the  dogmatic  type  of  teaching.  Here  is  what  purports  to  be 
knowledge,  but  it  is  pseudo-knowledge  as  far  as  it  enters  at  all 
into  the  minds  of  children  of  six  to  twelve  years.  "How  did 
God  make  all  things?  Ans.  God  first  thought  about  making 
things,  and  then  willed  to  make  them,  and  then  he  made  them. 
.  .  .  What  do  we  call  making  things  out  of  nothing?  Ans. 
Making  things  out  of  nothing  we  call  creating."  Again,  there 
is  the  dogmatic  inability  to  accept  the  principle  of  gradation  of 
material,  the  same  dogmatic  formulae  being  offered  for  children 
all  the  way  from  six  years  to  twelve.  Finally,  there  is  the 
characteristic  dogmatic  insistence  upon  particular  words.     "The 

1  By  H.  H.  Oberly.    Published  by  Thomas  Whittaker,  New  York,  1908. 


RITUALISM  321 

teacher  should  see  that  the  lessons  are  learned  according  to  the 
exact  words."  That  is,  instead  of  using  words  because  one  has 
something  to  say,  the  child  employs  them  in  such  a  way  as  to 
produce  a  verbal  mental  habit  that  prevents  thinking. 

One  might  go  on  to  ask:  What  in  general  is  understood  by 
"learning"  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 
the  Apostles'  Creed  in  any  of  our  churches  ?  What  is  the  educa- 
tional significance  of  finding  a  class  of  catechumens  letter-per- 
fect in  them  all?  How  much  does  it  assure  in  the  way  of 
an  intelligent  Christian  purpose  held  in  common?  In  short, 
under  dogmatic  and  ritualistic  auspices  alike  the  very  form  of 
catechetical  instruction  and  its  intellectualistic  presuppositions 
prove  to  be  inadequate  for  Christian  education  that  has  as  its 
dominating  motive  the  inculcation  of  a  foi*ward-looking,  world- 
transforming  social  purpose.  Without  doubt  the  incorporation 
of  the  missionary  interest  into  church  education  is  enlarging  the 
mental  horizon  and  stimulating  the  social  will.  But  the  rela- 
tion between  missions  and  the  ancient  creeds  is  rather  tenuous 
at  the  best,  so  that  the  tendency  is  to  add  giving  to  catechizing 
rather  than  to  regenerate  the  catechizing  itself.  Moreover,  as 
long  as  the  exposition  of  the  Christian  faith  retains  the  dogmatic 
form,  the  missionary  purpose  itself  will  lack  social  breadth, 
missions  themselves  being  a  measure  for  propagating  the  cate- 
chism, and  for  getting  men  into  churches  as  sectarian  as  ours 
at  the  home  base. 

(2)  Training  a  child  in  'prescribed,  indefinitely  repeated  acts 
of  worship  as  the  main  constituent  of  churchmanship  provides  for 
the  perpetuation  of  the  church  as  a  particular  society  in  the  com- 
munity and  the  world,  but  not  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  com- 
munity or  of  the  world.  In  non-ritualistic  circles  the  training  of 
children  in  precise  forms  of  worship  is  looked  upon  with  con- 
siderable distrust.  What  is  desired,  it  is  said,  is  inner  life, 
not  outward  ceremony,  however  seemly.  There  is  fear  that 
the  ceremony,  being  punctiliously  insisted  upon,  will  be  sub- 
stituted for  the  states  of  heart  and  will  that  it  is  supposed  to 
express.  Ritualistic  education  can  easily  reply  that  the  chil- 
dren under  its  care  show  at  least  as  convincing  signs  of  rever- 


322  RITUALISM 

ence  and  of  real  appreciation  of  the  content  of  church  worship 
as  children  otherwise  trained.  Moreover,  psychology  is  likely 
to  be  called  as  an  expert  witness  to  the  truth  that  outward  "  ex- 
pression of  the  emotions"  may  actually  help  to  produce  the 
emotions  themselves.  Finally,  it  may  be  said  that  the  com- 
mon worship  of  every  organized  communion  sooner  or  later 
takes  on  definite,  characteristic  forms,  to  which  children,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  become  habituated,  so  that  the  real  issue  is  not 
that  of  inner  life  versus  outer  form.  We  have  to  choose,  rather, 
between  different  sorts  of  inner  life,  and  between  different  sorts 
of  outer  form. 

Neither  the  pro  nor  the  con  in  this  debate  reaches  quite  to 
the  bottom  of  the  problem  of  social  education  in  and  through 
the  churches.  A  ritual  has  direct  social  significance.  For  a 
liturgy  does  not  merely  relate  the  worshipper  to  some  particular 
idea,  or  merely  remind  him  of  God.  Even  when  it  does  these 
things  ineffectively  it  nevertheless  relates  the  worshipper  to 
other  worshippers,  binding  them  all  together  in  a  common  social 
consciousness.  It  does  this,  not  only  or  chiefly  by  bringing 
them  together  within  four  walls,  but  by  causing  them  to  do  and 
to  say  many  things  in  unison.  There  are  fraternities,  like  the 
Freemasons,  that  appear  to  maintain  their  existence  chiefly 
by  the  unifying  power  of  a  ritual.  There  is  no  room  for  doubt 
that  training  in  ritual  worship  is  an  effective  method  for  produc- 
ing in  children  a  genuine  group  consciousness,  each  child  being 
carried  beyond  self-regard  and  self-will  by  each  common  act. 
Of  social  training,  as  of  learning  arithmetic,  it  may  be  said  that 
we  "learn  by  doing'*  more  than  by  listening.  We  learn  "to- 
getherness" by  doing  some  particular  thing  together  over  and 
over  again. 

The  ritualistic  type  of  religious  education  thus  furnishes 
a  means  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  church  as  a  particular  so- 
ciety within  the  community.  A  distinctive  form  of  worship, 
repeated  every  Sunday,  produces  in  the  worshipper  a  sense 
of  being  himself  religiously  distinct  from  the  mass  outside 
his  church.  This  sense  of  distinctness  easily  passes  into  a  posi- 
tive sense  of  obligation,  and  into  firm  loyalty.     It  would  be 


RITUALISM  323 

difficult  to  discover  an  educational  instrument  that  is  better 
adapted  for  producing  a  close-knit,  self-perpetuating  ecclesi- 
astical consciousness. 

But  the  point  of  its  social  strength  is  also  the  point  where 
danger  of  social  limitation  and  defect  appears.  For  the  problem 
of  the  Christian  religion  is  that  of  transforming  the  community's 
whole  social  life  into  a  brotherhood.  A  particular  religious 
fraternity  within  the  community,  though  its  doors  be  wide  open 
to  everybody,  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  the  solution  of  this  prob- 
lem. The  social  education  of  the  child  must  have  a  horizon 
that  reaches  far  outside  of  church  consciousness.  He  must  be 
trained  to  community  "togetherness"  not  merely  ecclesiastical 
"togetherness."  Loyalty  to  the  church  must  fuse  in  his  con- 
sciousness with  loyalty  of  the  church  to  the  cause  of  social  wel- 
fare, social  justice,  and  world  society. 

.  This  might  conceivably  be  accomplished  in  part  through  a 
ritual.  But  the  content  of  it  would  have  to  be  rich  in  social 
suggestiveness.  To  be  thus  rich,  it  would  have  to  approach  the 
problems  of  to-day  and  of  to-morrow  in  terms  that  are  not  too 
ancient.  The  simple  truth  is  that  we  cannot  adequately  express 
our  own  sense  of  the  social  will  of  God  in  terms  derived  from  the 
outworn  social  standards  of  centuries  ago.  How,  for  example, 
can  we  bring  ourselves  to  pray  heartily  for  "the  poor"  in  the 
ancient  terms?  The  existence  of  poverty  suggests  to  us,  or 
ought  to,  a  different  line  of  reflection,  a  different  sort  of  stimulus. 
We  need  modes  of  worship  that  will  make  it  uncomfortable  for 
us  to  carry  "  the  poor"  to  the  Lord  when  we  the  worshippers  are 
carrying  the  product  of  the  laborer's  industry  in  our  own 
pockets !  Nor  will  the  offering  of  our  worldly  substance  as  a 
part  of  the  ritual  suffice.  Into  worship  itself  must  go  the  sword 
of  the  Spirit,  the  sword  of  the  social  justice  that  is  love. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
EDUCATIONAL  TENDENCIES  OF  EVANGELICALISM 

Personal  religion  as  experience  of  reconciliation  with  God. 

The  term  "evangehcalism"  will  be  used  in  this  discussion  in 
the  restricted  sense  of  promoting  personal  religion  conceived 
as  experience  of  one's  reconciliation  with  God.  Evangelicalism 
takes  the  standpoint  of  personal  experience  as  distinguished 
from  doctrinal  correctness,  from  correct  church  relations, 
from  ritualistic  performances,  and  from  correct  acts  or  "good 
works."  Reconciliation  is  thought  of,  not  as  our  achievement,. 
but  as  divinely  wrought  for  us  and  within  us,  and  requiring  of 
us  only  surrender  of  self-will  and  acceptance  of  the  will  of  God. 
The  emphasis  is  upon  an  experienced  reversal  of  one's  status  be- 
fore God,  and  a  corresponding  reversal  in  one's  course  of  life. 

To  produce  contrast-effects  like  this  the  conditions  of  stirring 
emotions  must  be  created.  The  people  have  been  gathered 
into  great  assemblies  where  the  arts  of  social  suggestion  have 
been  employed,  often  with  skill.  The  dreadfulness  of  sin,  the 
hopeless  outlook  for  the  sinner,  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  on  our 
behalf,  the  readiness  of  the  Father  to  forgive,  the  happiness  of 
the  pardoned  sinner,  and  his  release  from  the  thraldom  of  evil 
desires  and  habits — these  are  the  most  characteristic  themes. 
They  have  been  reinforced  by  appealing  music,  personal  testi- 
mony of  converts,  individual  urging,  and  the  sight  of  others 
yielding  to  these  persuasives.  So  much  has  religious  emotion 
been  focussed  upon  this  one  point  that  "having  a  personal 
Christian  experience"  has  been  understood  in  large  circles  as 
meaning  "having  a  conversion  experience."  The  remainder  of 
life  has  anchored  itself  in  the  assurance  that  at  some  particular 
point  in  time  "the  great  transaction"  has  been  completed. 

The  impossibility  of  continuously  maintaining  the  emotion^ 

324 


EVANGELICALISM  325 

exaltation  of  the  revival,  and  tlie  limited  response  to  the  revival 
appeal,  have  necessitated  much  softening  down  of  these  con- 
trast-effects in  the  every-day  life  of  the  churches.  The  typical 
appeal  now  becomes  to  "decide  for  Christ,"  and  highly  colored 
emotions  are  declared  to  be  non-essential.  Here  we  find  a  shift 
of  emphasis  from  God's  acts  in  us  and  with  respect  to  us,  to  our 
acts  with  respect  to  him  and  his  purposes.  What  here  remains 
as  characteristic  of  evangelicalism  is  little  more  than  the  teach- 
ing that  to  be  a  Christian  one  must  at  some  particular  instant 
cross  a  line  that  separates  the  saved  from  the  unsaved. 

Some  social  consequences  of  this  point  of  view.  Looked  at 
as  an  abstract  theory,  the  standpoint  of  such  a  personal  religious 
experience,  as  far  as  it  is  held  out  as  a  privilege  of  every  one,  and 
not  as  an  arbitrary  divine  bestowal,  may  be  said  to  contain  a 
germ  of  religious  democracy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  insistence 
that  all  men  are  sinners,  that  all  are  subject  to  the  same  con- 
demnation, that  all  must  meet  the  same  conditions  of  salvation, 
and  that  the  attitude  of  God  is  "Whosoever  will,"  has  been  an 
appreciable  social  leveller.  Revival  meetings  are  notably  demo- 
cratic in  tone.  If  wealth  or  privilege  retains  any  aristocratic 
prerogative  in  them,  it  must  be  by  some  subtle  rather  than  overt 
control.  Moreover,  the  thought  that  each  of  us  stands  in  direct, 
indefinitely  modifiable  relations  with  God,  not  merely  in  some 
fixed  social  status,  has  been  an  immeasurable  inspiration  to 
self-development.  It  has  brought  out  the  innate  powers  of 
multitudes  of  plain  men.  It  has  stimulated  education.  Long 
before  our  States  reached  a  conviction  that  the  public  school 
system  should  reach  all  the  way  to  the  university,  or  even  to  the 
high  school,  ministers  were  successfully  appealing  to  farmers, 
mechanics,  and  shopkeepers  to  found  and  support  academies 
and  colleges  and  to  send  their  sons  thereto. 

Theoretically  evangelicalism  transcends  also  certain  other 
tendencies  to  spiritual  aristocracy  that  have  long  had  a  place 
within  Christianity.  No  longer  are  the  favors  of  the  divine 
presence  regarded  as  a  prerogative  of  a  few  saints  who  can 
give  themselves  to  contemplation  and  to  austerities  while  the 
mass  of  the  people  walks  upon  the  lower  level  of  formal  com- 


326  EVANGELICALISM 

pllance  with  a  few  external  requirements  of  the  church.  No; 
the  plain  man,  too,  can  walk  in  heavenly  places  in  this  life, 
and  he  can  converse  out  of  his  own  experience  upon  the  highest 
themes. 

All  this  is  true  theoretically,  and  to  some  extent  in  practice. 
But  the  tendency  toward  democracy  that  is  unquestionably 
here  is  partly  defeated  by  the  effort  of  evangelicaHsm  to  pro- 
mote a  uniform  experience  among  human  beings  who  are  not 
uniform.  Attempts  to  standardize  religious  emotion  have 
failed  even  in  religious  bodies  in  which  these  attempts  have  been 
unresisted.  But  in  the  meantime,  individuals  who  by  virtue 
of  temperamental  traits  or  of  a  favorable  conjunction  of  cir- 
cumstances happen  to  have  had  the  standard  evangelical  ex- 
perience, have  become  a  spiritual  aristocracy.  They  are  the 
ones  who  have  indubitably  "got  religion";  they  are  the  ones 
who  have  something  to  talk  about  in  the  experience  meeting; 
and  consequently  a  tacit  discount  is  placed  upon  experience  of 
other  types.  Thus  we  have  a  superior  religious  class  alongside 
the  religious  commonalty,  and  between  the  two  there  often 
exists  an  emotional  difference  that  interferes  with  the  formation 
of  unified  group  purposes. 

The  place  of  children  in  the  thought  of  evangelicalism. 
Not  only  are  adults  not  all  capable  of  the  experience  that  evan- 
gelicalism has  prized;  this  experience  is  also  practically  inacces- 
sible to  young  children  without  forcing  them  toward  religious 
morbidity.  The  conversion  experience  is  distinctly  a  thing  of 
adolescent  and  adult  life.  Here,  then,  is  another  tendency  to 
religious  stratification.  If  church  membership  is  reserved  for 
those  who  have  had  the  standard  evangelical  experience,  then 
what  is  the  religious  and  ecclesiastical  status  of  young  children 
who  are  under  the  church's  care?  Unmodified  evangelicalism 
has  no  workable  conception  of  a  present  Christian  life  for  them, 
or  of  membership  in  the  Christian  communion. 

A  movement  that  exalts  the  love  of  God  as  evangelicalism 
has  done  is  bound,  of  course,  to  take  a  warm  interest  in  children. 
It  is  bound  to  find  ways  to  teach  religion,  whether  consistently 
or  not.    In  fact,  the  churches  that  have  been  foremost  in  the 


EVANGELICALISM  327 

Sunday  school  movement  are  the  ones  that  have  been  most 
strongly  impregnated  with  evangelicaHsm.  They  have  looked 
upon  the  Sunday  school  theoretically  as  an  agency  for  convert- 
ing the  young.  But  they  have  stretched  the  term  "  conversion." 
Their  observation  of  children  has  shown  the  inapphcability  of 
the  term  in  its  strict  evangelical  sense  to  the  younger  pupils, 
and  to  a  large  extent  even  to  adolescents.  The  churches  have 
been  forced  by  realities  to  conceive  the  Sunday  school  more 
and  more  as  an  educational  enterprise.  The  acclimating  of  the 
term  "religious  education"  during  the  last  twenty  years  is  an 
interesting  index  of  this  movement.  Religious  thought  with 
respect  to  the  young  is  crystallizing,  even  in  evangelical  circles, 
around  the  idea  of  religious  growth — growth  that  does  not 
necessarily  presuppose  an  antecedent  conversion. 

Wherein,  now,  can  such  religious  growth  be  conceived  to  con- 
sist? Can  it  be  included  wdthin  the  notion  of  religious  experi- 
ence, and  if  so,  how?  The  close  association  of  evangelicalism 
with  dogmatism  produced  as  a  first  conception  of  the  pupil's 
growth  that  of  increase  in  his  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures. 
But  this  did  not  satisfy  the  presupposition  that  religion  is  an 
experience  of  God.  Evangelicalism,  with  all  its  emphasis 
upon  the  Bible,  could  not  rest  here.  The  child's  knowledge, 
even  of  the  Scriptures,  must  not  be  left  as  a  thing  by  itself;  it 
must  somehow  be  wrought  into  an  integral  life  that  can  move  on 
from  level  to  level  as  the  child's  years  increase.  Again  and  again 
effort  has  been  made  to  meet  this  demand  by  adding  evangelism 
to  religious  education.  But  this  has  not  met  the  situation  be- 
cause it  ignores  the  principle  of  growth.  Child  evangelism  is 
itself  something  per  se  interjected  into  the  course  of  teaching 
and  training,  and  entirely  independent  of  the  principle  of 
growth. 

Gradually  there  is  dawning  a  realization  that  our  social  ex- 
perience is  a  sphere  for  communion  with  God,  that  here  children 
can  share  religion  with  adults,  and  can  grow  in  religion  without 
any  forcing  whatever.  Here  the  bond  of  union  between  adults, 
and  between  them  and  children,  is  the  same;  it  is  neither  uni- 
formity of  doctrine,  nor  yet  the  emotional  experience  of  recon- 


328  EVANGELICALISM 

ciliation,  but  rather  the  experience  of  a  purpose  of  reconciliation, 
the  purpose  to  hve  a  common  life  as  brothers,  and  in  so  doing  to 
live  a  common  life  with  the  Father. 

This  is  not  only  an  inclusive  conception,  inclusive  of  indi- 
viduals old  and  young,  inclusive  of  all  churches  as  far  as  they 
are  really  brotherhoods,  inclusive  of  all  the  good  will  beyond  the 
churches;  it  is  also  a  theologically  reconciling  conception.  The 
notion  of  sin  and  of  release  from  it,  the  notion  of  individual 
reconciliation  with  the  Father,  and  the  notion  of  a  life  that  is 
from  above,  are  not  only  not  smothered;  they  are  filled  with  the 
most  poignant  content.  The  waste  of  life  because  we  are  not 
brothers,  the  waste  of  health,  the  poverty,  the  broken  homes, 
the  stunted  and  distorted  minds,  the  quarrels,  the  oppression 
of  class  by  class,  the  riots,  the  wars,  the  pessimism — all  this  in 
the  midst  of  which  we  live,  a  part  of  which  we  are,  is  the  world 
sunken  in  iniquity.  When  in  such  a  world  we  take  as  our 
own  God's  purpose  of  reconciliation  we  do  not  escape  the  ex- 
perience of  condemnation  and  of  repentance,  or  the  necessity 
for  a  saving  faith.  For  we  have  natural  tendencies  to  selfish- 
ness, greed,  and  revenge,  all  of  which  must  be  overcome;  we 
have  to  extricate  our  will  from  a  social  complex  in  which  we 
profit  at  the  expense  of  our  fellows;  we  have  to  face  the  suffering 
of  the  world  as  a  consequence  in  part  of  our  own  neglect;  we 
find  necessary  not  only  stern  self -discipline,  but  also  faith  that  is 
robust  enough  to  face  unflinchingly  this,  the  most  stupendous, 
the  most  oppressive,  the  most  tragic  problem  that  the  mind  of 
man  has  conceived. 

This  social  experience  of  God  in  his  world — God  in  all  love, 
and  in  all  that  wins  us  to  the  love  way — makes  the  love  of  the 
Father  and  the  love  of  the  neighbor  one  experience.  This  is  a 
religion  of  the  heart.  It  will  tax  all  the  emotional  resources  of 
evangelicalism.  It  will  still  single  out  each  individual,  and  it 
will  go  on  utilizing  the  values  of  mass  suggestion.  But  it  will 
not  separate  emotion  from  study  or  from  action.  And  because 
it  will  maintain  these  three  in  vital  unity,  it  will  obliterate  the 
gulf  that  has  existed  between  child  and  man,  between  religious 
education  and  religious  experience. 


EVANGELICALISM  329 

The  Sunday  school  as  an  evangelistic  agency.  \Miat  has 
just  been  sketched  might  be  called  a  socialized  evangelicalism. 
It  conceives  religion  as  experience,  and  specifically  as  experi- 
ence of  reconciliation,  but  it  holds  that  reconciliation  lies  in  the 
purpose  to  reconcile,  and  that  three  parties  are  involved,  my- 
self, my  neighbor,  and  God.  It  holds,  further,  that  the  inner 
rectification  of  the  heart,  and  the  outer  act  of  establishing  a  just 
society,  are  phases  of  one  and  the  same  reconciling  process. 
Religious  experience  is  here  no  longer  separated  from  the  social 
relations  and  enterprises  that  a  child  can  appreciate.  On  this 
basis  the  Sunday  school  can  still  be — it  must  be — an  evangel- 
istic agency.  But  its  effectiveness  as  such  an  agency  will  de- 
pend to  some  extent  upon  reconstructing  existing  conditions 
and  methods. 

(1)  Unambiguous  standing  within  the  religious  communion 
should  be  made  possible  for  every  child.  This  cannot  be  done 
until  child  religion  is  conceived  in  terms  of  a  growing  purpose. 
A  recent  writer  in  a  magazine  that  is  published  in  the  interest 
of  the  religious  life  of  boys  treats  the  Christian  experience  as 
if  it  must  have  its  beginning  in  the  bluntness  of  a  conscious 
life  choice.  He  speaks  of  a  day  when  we  choose  to  take  religion 
in  earnest,  of  an  hour  when  the  gospel  must  be  deliberately 
accepted  or  deliberately  rejected.  "The  choice  of  life,"  he 
says,  "cannot  be  broken  up  into  little  bits."^  Here  we  have 
a  mechanical  rather  than  a  vital  mode  of  thought  concerning 
the  things  of  character.  The  successive  acts  in  which  a  will 
grows  are  thought  of,  not  in  terms  of  growth  but  of  accretion, 
or  as  so  many  mutually  external  bits  which  are  merely  juxta- 
posed or  heaped  up.  The  same  type  of  thought  appears  in 
those  who  hold  that  every  child  must  be  on  one  side  or  the 
other  of  a  fixed  line  that  separates  the  saved  from  the  unsaved. 
Parents  whose  affection  makes  it  impossible  for  them  to  set 
up  any  such  mechanical  division  between  their  own  offspring, 
especially  between  young  children,  often  fail  to  see  the  in- 
congruity of  ascribing  anything  of  the  kind  to  God. 

A  social  conception  of  God  and  of  our  reconciliation  with  him 

1  "Conversion,"  by  H.  R.  Mackintosh.     American  Youth,  August,  1913. 


330  EVANGELICALISM 

will  recognize  every  affectionate  pulse-beat  as  divine.  Re- 
ligious education  will  seize  upon  every  impulse  to  generosity, 
to  justice,  and  to  co-operation  as  an  occasion  to  make  the  pupil 
realize  that  just  here  he  is  in  fellowship  with  the  church  and 
with  the  Father.  This  fellowship  will  involve  mutual  recogni- 
tion, the  child  recognizing  the  church  as  a  society  in  which  he 
must  grow,  and  the  church  recognizing  children  as  already 
within  itself,  yes,  as  its  very  self  in  process  of  growth.  This 
recognition,  to  be  most  effective,  will  need  outward  signs  and 
specific  methods  of  calling  to  remembrance.  Just  what 
changes  this  will  imply  in  the  rules  of  various  denominations 
need  not  here  be  specified,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  suggest  par- 
ticular occasions  on  which  adults  and  children  may  well  cele- 
brate together  their  unity  in  the  Christian  purpose.  It  is 
enough  to  point  out  that  overt  acts  of  co-operation,  and  overt 
recognition  of  one  another,  are  essential  alike  to  the  child  and 
to  the  adult. 

(2)  The  undue  extension,  and  consequent  weakening,  of  the 
term  "conversion,"  should  be  resisted.  When  the  religious 
life  of  small  children  is  thought  of  in  terms  of  status  rather 
than  in  terms  of  growth,  the  tendency  is  to  extend  and  dilute 
the  meaning  of  the  conversion  whereby  the  status  is  supposed  to 
be  established.  If  the  term  is  to  be  applied  to  persons  whose 
will  is  still  relatively  inchoate,  lacking  sharp  edges  and  definite 
moral  attitudes,  what  shall  it  mean  when  adults  are  called  upon 
to  repent  and  be  converted?  Obviously,  if  adults  and  young 
children  are  both  included  under  the  term,  its  essential  and 
irreducible  meaning  will  be  found  in  the  infantile  mind  that 
shows  signs  of  piety.  Have  we  not  here  a  large  part  of  the 
explanation  for  the  indefiniteness  that  has  come  to  characterize 
the  evangelistic  appeal  to  adults?  And  of  the  degradation  of 
statistics  of  conversions — as  though  one  who  holds  up  a  hand, 
or  signs  a  card,  or  shakes  hands  with  an  evangelist  is  to  be 
counted  as  a  converted  man !  In  the  interest  of  child  religion 
and  of  adult  religion  alike,  this  tendency  should  be  resisted. 
Small  children  are  simply  not  capable  of  viewing  life's  problems 
in  the  perspective  that  is  implied  in  an  intelligent  life  choice. 


EVANGELICALISM  331 

But  they  are  capable  of  responding  to  love,  and  of  sharing  with 
adults  in  the  work  of  reconciliation — they  are  capable  of  grow- 
ing in  the  love  way. 

(3)  If  a  ''decision  daif  is  observed,  it  should  respect  the  prin- 
ciple of  growth,  with  its  corollary  of  gradation.  The  rcductio 
ad  ahsurdum  of  Sunday  school  evangelism  is  found  in  Sunday 
schools  that  once  a  year  interrupt  aind  lay  aside  the  educational 
process  in  order  to  make  an  appeal  to  all  pupils  above  seven 
years  of  age  to  make  an  immediate  decision  for  Christ.  There 
are  schools  in  which  the  same  little  children  sign  decision  cards 
year  after  year.  The  trouble  with  this  is  not  that  there  is  too 
much  evangelism,  but  too  little.  For  the  meaning  of  the  supn 
posed  decision  is  washed  out  and  faded  by  the  indiscriminate- 
ness  of  the  method.  It  should  require  no  great  depth  of  cither 
psychological  or  religious  insight  to  perceive  that  when  the 
same  appeal  for  decision  is  put  before  a  child  of  eight  and  one 
of  sixteen  before  whom  the  vista  of  life  is  opening  emotionally 
and  intellectually,  there  is  religious  incongruity  that  is  likely 
to  interfere  with  the  vital  processes  of  both.  The  will  grows; 
it,  as  well  as  the  intelligence,  requires  gradation  of  educational 
process  and  material. 

Moreover,  to  ignore  on  decision  day  the  growth  of  will  that 
has  been  going  on  through  the  regular  processes  of  instruction 
and  training  is  to  run  the  risk  of  making  personal  religion 
abstract  or  sentimental  or  bafflingly  mysterious.  \Miy  ask  a 
child  to  begin  the  religious  life  when  he  has  already  taken  many 
steps  in  it  ?  How  can  teachers  assume  that  Christian  purpose 
is  lacking  when  the  whole  tendency  of  the  preceding  Sunday 
school  experience  has  been  to  produce  and  clarify  such  purpose  ? 
The  most  that  decision  day  can  be  expected  to  do  is  to  produce 
more  or  less  of  a  climax  in  a  process  that  has  been  going  on  for 
years.  This  climax,  too,  will  differ  from  department  to  de- 
partment. If  decision  day  could  be  changed  in  substance  and 
in  name  to  "fellowship  day,"  the  purpose  of  which  should  be 
realization  of  our  fellowship  with  one  another,  with  Jesus,  and 
with  the  Father  in  a  common  purpose  of  social  reconciliation, 
then  every  grade  in  the  school  could  celebrate  the  festival  in 


332  EVANGELICALISM 

its  own  way.  The  social  longings  of  adolescence  could  be  met 
by  confirmation  or  its  equivalent  in  the  way  of  public  con- 
fession by  the  pupil  and  recognition  by  the  church.  A  parallel, 
but  simpler  and  narrower,  declaration  of  standpoint  could  be 
made  by  each  earlier  department  or  grade,  and  recognition  by 
the  church  through  the  department  could  correspond  to  the 
recognition  of  adolescents  as  full  members.  The  whole  would 
constitute  a  joyous-solemn  calling  to  mind  of  what  it  is  that 
unites  these  pupils  and  their  teachers  to  one  another  in  the 
church  and  in  the  school,  with  appropriate  measures  for  ena- 
bling each  pupil,  in  a  manner  appropriate  to  his  age,  to  realize 
that  this  is  my  purpose,  and  that  this  is  my  church. 

There  is  reason  for  questioning  the  social  tendency  of  de- 
cision-day methods  that  cause  pupils  to  exaggerate  the  dif- 
ferences that  exist  between  them.  There  are  schools  in  which 
certain  pupils,  whose  expressions  of  religious  interest  have 
been  more  prompt  or  more  free  than  those  of  other  pupils, 
have  been  put  forward  until  they  have  become  "forward.'^ 
The  worst  of  it  is  not  that  these  few  children  become  priggish, 
but  that  religion  is  misrepresented  to  the  mass  of  the  pupils. 
It  is  misrepresented  because  their  own  religiousness  goes 
relatively  unrecognized,  and  because  religion  itself  here  be- 
comes sponsor  for  a  kind  of  aristocracy. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  is  that  every  day  should  be  a  day  of 
decision  for  every  pupil  according  to  his  capacity  for  decision. 
That  is,  the  whole  of  religious  education  should  have  its  roots 
in  social  acts,  relations,  and  purposes  that  grow  from  more  to 
more  continuously.  Not  that  the  socializing  of  the  will  can 
be  expected  to  proceed  with  even  pace  through  all  stages 
of  growth.  The  curve  of  mental  as  well  as  of  physical  growth 
is  irregular,  and  so  is  the  curve  of  social  interest.  We  are  to 
expect  rapid  increase  here,  slower  increase  there,  with  only 
approximate  conformity  of  the  individual  to  any  age  scale. 
The  general  growth  of  social  interest  that  comes  with  adoles- 
cence may  well  be  taken  advantage  of  to  secure  the  crystalliza- 
tion of  social  purpose  that  has  long  been  forming,  that  is,  to 
cause  the  pupil  to  realize,  as  never  before,  the  fellowship  of 


EVANGELICALISM  333 

purpose  that  constitutes  the  church.  But  the  realization 
of  this  fellowship  should  be  part  and  parcel  of  the  whole  scheme 
of  religious  instruction  and  training  in  all  the  grades. 

(4)  Whatever  is  vital  in  the  "evangelistic  department"  of 
Sunday  school  organizations  shoidd  be  taken  up  into  the  regidar 
plan  of  instruction  and  training,  and  ''child  evangelism"  shoidd 
cease.  The  reason  for  an  evangelistic  department,  a  child 
evangelist,  and  evangelistic  mass  meetings  for  children  grows 
out  of  the  presupposition  that  the  Sunday  school,  in  its  regular 
and  systematic  work,  will  teach  Bible  or  catechism  rather  than 
develop  Christian  purpose  in  children.  Let  us  make  the  pre- 
supposition untrue!  When  we  do  so,  we  shall  realize  that 
evangelistic  meetings  for  children,  especially  those  conducted 
by  strangers  who  use  high-pressure  methods  that  ignore  the 
laws  of  growth,  are  not  only  unnecessary,  but  also  injurious. 
They  are  injurious  because  the  impression  that  they  make  upon 
children  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Christian  life  is  untrue.  It  is 
as  untrue  as  would  be  the  presentation  to  healthy  children  of  a 
bottle  of  medicine  to  make  them  grow.  The  Christian  life 
cannot  be  truthfully  separated,  with  either  child  or  adult,  from 
the  social  issues  that  constitute  the  difference  between  the  mind 
of  Christ  and  the  love  of  the  world.  To  draw  the  child's  mind 
away  from  these  issues  as  they  appear  before  him  in  his  own 
inch-by-inch  experience,  and  as  the  faithful  Sunday  school 
teacher  has  to  recognize  them,  into  a  relatively  abstract  or 
sentimental  contemplation  of  himself  or  of  Christ,  is  to  counter- 
act, not  to  supplement  the  sound  work  of  religious  education. 

(5)  Greater  emphasis  should  be  i^laced  upon  the  content  of  the 
Christian  purpose.  In  morals  and  religion  alike  we  are  under 
the  influence  of  traditions  that  unduly  exalt  the  form  of  life  as 
against  the  content.  We  are  not  seldom  urged  to  be  con- 
scientious, or  to  be  true  to  duty  when  if  we  followed  the  advice 
we  should  obey  an  ignorant  and  sometimes  injurious  sense  of 
duty.  We  are  advised  to  surrender  to  God  before  there  has 
been  adequate  inquiry  into  our  idea  of  God.  The  value  of  sur- 
render to  God  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  God  to  whom 
we  surrender.     We  are  invited  to  come  to  Christ  when  it  is  not 


334  EVANGELICALISM 

decisively  clear  what  this  means  in  terms  of  actual  social  living. 
The  nature  of  God  and  the  mind  of  Christ  must  be  expressed  in 
these  terms  in  all  our  teaching.  The  divine  presence  and  the 
divine  nature  are  to  be  discerned  in  the  love  between  men  that 
the  pupil  can  actually  witness  and  take  part  in.  Here  is  the 
application  within  religious  education  of  evangelicalism's  in- 
sistence that  religion  is  an  experience.  Children  can  have  the 
experience  because  they  can  appreciate  love  and  form  a  per- 
sonal will  to  love.  But  this  will  to  love  must  learn  to  discrim- 
inate. It  must  be  trained  to  take  notice  of  the  conditions  of 
human  life;  it  must  learn  what  are  the  causes  of  welfare  and 
of  illfare;  it  must  define  social  issues  as  they  arise,  but  always 
with  eyes  for  the  distant  as  well  as  the  immediate  good.  This 
is  evangelistic  teaching,  the  teaching  of  the  good  news  that  is 
for  all  the  world,  the  pressing  home  to  the  individual  pupil  of 
the  insistent  love  of  God. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
EDUCATIONAL  TENDENCIES  OF  LIBERALISM 

The  notion  of  religious  freedom.  For  the  purposes  of  the 
present  discussion  rehgious  liberaHsm  may  be  defined  as  the 
attempt  to  incorporate  freedom  into  rehgion.  Not  freedom 
from  religion,  but  freedom  in  religion,  is  the  idea.  As  rehgious 
repression  has  taken  the  two  main  forms  of  control  of  thought 
and  control  of  worship  or  of  ecclesiastical  Hfe  in  general,  so  tlie 
effort  at  liberation  has  been  directed  chiefly  toward  untram- 
melled thinking  and  a  rationally  regulated  life,  worship  included. 

The  demand  for  religious  subjection  has  always  presented 
itself  as  a  command  of  God  addressed  to  men,  whereas  it  has 
always  been  a  command  of  some  men  addressed  to  others  in  the 
name  of  God.  The  essence  of  dogmatism  is  its  demand  that  I 
shall  take  as  divine  revelation  what  other  men  have  already 
judged  to  be  revelation.  To  submit  to  this  demand  is  to  sub- 
mit to  men,  not  God.  Just  so,  when  the  church  prescribes 
exclusive  modes  of  worship  or  rules  of  conduct,  what  happens 
is  that  some  men  presume  to  decide  these  things  for  others. 
Hence  the  central  tendency  of  liberalism  has  been  to  clear  up 
the  confusion  of  mind  whereby  human  opinions  have  been  given 
the  force  of  divine  revelation,  and  human  judgments  the  force 
of  divine  commands,  and  to  show,  instead,  the  inherent  natural- 
ness and  reasonableness  of  religion.  This  clearing-up  process 
is  going  on  actively  in  many  ecclesiastical  circles,  orthodox  as 
well  as  heterodox. 

The  result  of  resisting  sectarian  restrictions  upon  the  mind, 
and  of  falling  back  upon  what  is  broadly  human  as  the  sphere 
in  which  to  trace  the  thoughts  of  God,  varies  according  to  the 
position  of  the  emphasis.  When  liberalism  places  its  emphasis 
upon  sound  knowledge,  how  to  maintain  religious  zeal  becomes 
a  problem.     The  very  narrowness  of  dogmatism  seems  at  times 

335 


336  LIBERALISM 

to  produce  religious  intensity  that  has  power  with  men,  whereas 
the  Hberal  thinker  tends  not  seldom  to  become  an  onlooker 
rather  than  a  doer.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  breadth  of 
thought  tends  with  some  persons  toward  a  more  or  less  mystical 
realization  of  the  all-encompassing  divine  life.  Here  is  warmth 
of  feeling,  not  mere  pointedness  of  thought.  But,  all  in  all, 
the  attempt  to  incorporate  freedom  into  religion  tends  to  re- 
place the  rejected  authority  not  so  much  by  sound  knowledge, 
or  by  mystical  delights,  as  by.  the  .affirmation  of  ethical  princi- 
ples as  the  mind  of  God.  When  liberalism  insists  upon  being 
positively  religious  as  well  as  open-minded,  it  has  nothing  that 
it  can  substitute  for  simple  goodness.  Dogmatism  encounters 
the  danger  of  substituting  orthodoxy  for  kindness,  and  ritualism 
the  danger  of  substituting  institutional  conformity  for  social 
breadth.  But  liberalism  has  no  cloak  with  which  to  conceal 
the  irreligion  that  is  in  all  unkindness,  all  neglect  of  human  needs. 

Liberalism  instills  ethical  principles,  not  by  authority,  but 
through  reflection.  Hence  the  tendency  to  habituation  by  drill 
processes  is  less  in  evidence  than  it  is  in  either  the  dogmatic 
or  the  ritualistic  type  of  education.  Moreover,  since  reflection 
is  a  process  in  which  one  acts  as  an  individual,  a  process  in  which 
one  must  resist  gregarious  tendencies,  for  the  time  being  at  least, 
liberalism  is  less  inclined  than  is  evangelicalism  to  mass  move- 
ments that  sway  men  by  suggestion  rather  than  1^  inciting  them 
to  think  for  themselves. 

Here,  then,  are  three  points  in  which  liberalism  has  obvious 
significance  for  a  theory  of  religious  education:  The  effort  to 
develop  in  each  person  an  individual  or  independent  attitude 
in  all  religious  matters;  the  awakening  of  thought  as  contrasted 
with  mental  habituation;  and  the  fusion  of  rightness  toward 
God  with  rightness  toward  men.  Before  we  attempt  to  weigh 
the  social  significance  of  all  this,  let  us  pause  to  consider  some 
phases  of  the  relation  between  religious  freedom  and  the  general 
cause  of  human  liberty. 

Can  there  be  religious  emancipation  within  aristocratic 
or  plutocratic  society?  *  It  is  possible  to  think  of  liberal  relig- 
ion in  terms  of  the  individual  rather  than  of  society.     If  the 


LIBERALISM  337 

civil  state  protects  me  from  distraint  of  person  and  of  property 
on  account  of  religion,  and  if  I  use  my  own  ability  to  think,  re- 
sisting all  ecclesiastical  dictation,  am  I  not  then  free  indeed? 
What  is  religious  emancipation  if  not  just  release  from  ancient 
ecclesiastical  restraints  ? 

The  youth  of  our  colleges  are  often  warned  not  to  think 
of  freedom  as  merely  negative,  the  mere  absence  of  restraint. 
We  say  to  them:  "You  cannot  be  really  free  until,  firsts  you 
acquire  ability  to  resist  your  impulses  and  to  organize  yourself 
upon  a  plan  that  you  deliberately  approve,  and  until,  second, 
you  acquire  purposes  large  enough  to  furnish  outlet  for  your 
powers."  With  equal  truth  a  ^Azr(^  thing  might  be  said :  "You 
cannot  be  free  until  you  are  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  freedom  for 
all.  For  the  you  that  requires  to  be  organized,  and  that  requires 
outlet  for  its  powers,  is  social  in  nature,  fundamentally  so. 
Moreover,  as  long  as  you  remain  an  acquiescent,  non-protesting 
member  of  a  society  that  oppresses  your  fellows,  you  must  either 
close  your  eyes  to  injustice  or  else  bribe  your  heart  by  the  ad- 
vantages of  silence.  In  either  case  the  wheel  of  inequality 
passes  over  your  soul,  grinding  it  into  the  dust.  Oppression 
makes  its  beneficiaries  as  well  as  its  victims  unfree." 

It  is  quite  possible  to  exercise  negative  religious  freedom  with- 
out finding  adequate  religious  self-expression.  The  negatively 
free  mind  may  be  most  conventional,  most  swayed  by  the  in- 
terests with  which  it  is  socially  and  economically  bound.  It 
may  be  a  contented  member  of  a  religious  set  or  clique.  It  may 
be  so  tied  to  the  past  as  to  resist  the  truly  free  religion  of  social 
justice.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  era  of  our  attempt  to  unfetter 
religion  finds  various  fundamental  rights  of  man  as  yet  un- 
achieved, and  as  yet  there  is  no  sufficiently  clear  demonstration 
of  the  essential  relationship  between  the  different  kinds  of  free- 
dom. In  a  society  that  does  not  yet  secure  to  masses  of  children 
the  health  that  the  community  possesses  the  means  to  bestow — 
in  such  a  society  what  is  religious  freedom  after  all,  even  for 
one  whose  own  children  are  healthy  ? 

The  right  to  think,  and  to  worship  according  to  the  dictates 
of  one's  own  judgment  does  indeed  occupy  a  basal  position 


338  LIBERALISM 

in  the  general  emancipation  of  man.  But  the  structure  of 
liberty  consists  of  much  more  than  foundation-stones.  Release 
from  restraint  is  release  of  power  that  insists  upon  giving  effect 
to  itself.  In  this  case,  what  effect?  To  throw  off  the  yoke 
of  spiritual  subjection  must  ultimately  mean  getting  into 
action  for  larger,  deeper  spiritual  ends.  It  must  mean  that 
we  are  ready  to  wrestle  as  never  before  with  the  god  of  this 
world. 

In  short,  within  a  social  system  of  aristocratic  or  plutocratic 
privilege,  positive  religious  emancipation  is  possible  only  on 
condition  that  we  enter  into  the  divine  purpose  to  do  away  with 
privilege  and  set  up  democracy.  Religious  liberalism  has  not 
failed  to  give  signs  that  this  is  the  law  of  its  inner  life,  for  it 
has  been  foremost  in  opposition  to  slavery.  In  general,  too, 
the  liberal  mind  can  be  relied  upon  to  see  through  the  obfusca- 
tions  whereby  autocracy  of  many  kinds  constantly  strives  to 
justify  irrational  force  by  reason.  Going  forward  in  the  same 
path,  emancipated  souls  will  find  still  fuller  religious  life,  still 
fuller  realization  of  God,  in  the  struggle  for  social  justice  and  a 
world  society.  Emancipated  souls  must  find  this,  or  else,  their 
freedom  being  merely  negative,  their  religious  life  will  be  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  social  orthodoxy. 

The  educational  problems  of  liberalism.  All  the  queries 
that  have  just  been  raised  as  to  the  relations  within  liberalism 
between  reflection  and  action  on  the  one  hand,  and  between 
individual  independence  and  social  justice  on  the  other,  are 
educational  problems.  I  shall  now  set  them  forth  as  such, 
with  a  hint  or  two  toward  solutions. 

(1)  Liberalism  opens  the  way  to  the  most  vital  materials  and 
methods  of  instruction,  but  it  encounters  the  danger  of  intellectual' 
ism.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  external  religious  authority  to  dis- 
courage too  curious  prying  into  facts  with  respect  to  the  human 
bearers  of  the  supposed  divine  prerogatives.  History  is  rel- 
atively non-essential,  at  least  history  as  inquiry,  for  dogmatism 
is  fully  ready  to  formulate  all  that  is  religiously  essential  in  the 
past.  Similarly,  dogmatism  is  satisfied  with  a  relatively  narrow 
range  of  subjects  for  study.     Why,  for  instance,  should  one 


LIBERALISM  339 

study  religions  other  than  one's  own?  Why  should  one  be 
religiously  concerned  to  understand  the  world  movements  of 
the  present,  since  a  completed  faith  was  once  delivered,  and  only 
once,  to  the  saints  ?  This  intellectual  attitude  liberalism  exactly 
reverses.  It  is  interested  in  the  human  as  such,  partly  for  the 
sake  of  avoiding  human  error,  partly  because  the  human  as 
such  is  looked  upon  as  revealing  divine  guidance  and  meaning. 
Therefore,  the  further  we  can  trace  down  the  human  elements  in 
history  the  better;  the  more  we  know  about  other  religions  the 
better  for  our  own. 

This  spirit  meets  the  interests  of  pupils  without  reservation, 
for  it  brings  human  action  into  the  foreground,  and  encourages 
curiosity.  There  is  less  tendency  to  flatten  out  things  in  the 
interest  of  a  formula.  Moreover,  methods  of  pupil  self-expres- 
sion can  be  adopted  with  less  reserve.  For,  whereas  dogmatic 
teaching  fails  of  its  purpose  unless  it  gives  the  pupil's  mind  a 
particular  set,  liberalism  is  most  concerned  that  the  pupil 
should  weigh  facts,  and  do  some  real  thinking  of  his  own,  even 
if  his  thoughts  do  not  reproduce  those  of  his  teacher. 

On  the  other  hand,  so  much  of  the  struggle  for  religious  free- 
dom has  centred  around  the  right  to  think,  and  the  adoption  of 
sound  methods  of  investigation  has  necessitated  so  much  revi- 
sion of  biblical  interpretation,  that  liberalism  has  formed  an 
intellectual  habit  that,  carried  into  religious  life,  becomes  in- 
tellectualism.  The  place  that  intellectuality  occupies  in  the 
campaign  against  restraints  and  against  historical  errors  is 
different  from  the  place  that  it  holds  in  the  promotion  of  vital 
religion.  The  mental  operation  that  is  chiefly  required  for 
religious  growth  is  the  discriminative  appreciation  of  values. 
This  involves,  of  course,  observation  of  facts,  some  understand- 
ing of  the  past,  and  some  rational  foresight;  it  involves  some 
generalization  of  the  standpoint  from  which  one  judges  life  and 
duty;  but  here  the  main  work  of  intelligence  is  to  clarify  one's 
desires  and  purposes  so  that  revision  may  be  made,  and  to 
discover  means  whereby  one's  life  purposes  may  be  carried 
out.  The  achievement  of  a  broad  outlook,  then,  or  of  ability 
to  prove  or  defend  one's  position  by  sound  knowledge  is  at 


340  LIBERALISM 

most  a  single  part,  and  that  not  the  central  part,  of  religious 
instruction.^ 

(2)  Liberalism  makes  for  ethical  clarity  and  breadth,  but  it 
easily  fails  of  ethical  fervor.  Holding  to  the  ideal  of  a  rationally 
ordered  life,  as  distinguished  from  one  that  is  ecclesiastically 
prescribed,  the  liberal  would  avoid,  on  the  one  hand,  drifting 
with  the  currents  of  conventionalism  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
being  swept  off  his  feet  by  floods  of  mass  emotion.  The  atti- 
tude of  ethical  reflection  has  the  value  of  contributing  to 
clarity  and  breadth  of  purpose,  and  not  seldom  to  steady  loyalty 
to  a  principle  through  thick  and  thin.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
reflection  has  the  effect  of  inhibiting  impulses,  and  of  postponing 
or  resisting  rather  than  of  initiating  action.  Now,  a  locomotive 
engine  must  of  course  have  a  throttle,  but  it  must  have  steam 
also.  Human  impulses  must  be  regulated  and  redirected,  but 
yet  the  inner  fire  is  what  moves  life  up  the  grade  of  progress. 
Religious  education  must  include  provision  for  cultivating  re- 
ligious fervor. 

J  Some  years  ago  a  liberal-minded  clergyman  of  orthodox  aflaiiations,  con- 
vinced that  catechetical  instruction  should  be  revived  in  Protestantism,  and 
finding  no  printed  catechism  that  sviited  him,  undertook  to  write  one.  Here  are 
some  of  the  questions  and  answers  that  resulted : 

"1.  Q.  Apart  from  the  things  which  you  believe,  hope,  or  imagine  to  be  true, 
what  do  you  know  ? 

A.  I  know  that  there  is  a  world,  and  that  I  live  in  it. 

2.  Q.  How  do  you  know  that  there  is  a  world  ? 

A.  I  know  that  there  is  a  world  because  I  can  touch,  taste,  smell,  see  and 
hear. 

3.  Q.  How  do  you  know  that  you  live  ? 

A.  I  know  that  I  live  because  I  think,  feel  and  will. 

23.  Q.  Since  God  made  you  to  love  these  things,  does  he  compel  you  so  to  do  ? 
A.  No;  though  God  has  made  me  in  order  that  I  might  love  the  good,  the 

true,  and  the  beautiful,  He  made  me  able  to  love  or  to  hate,  to  choose  or  to 
refuse,  that  so  my  love  may  be  my  own  free  offering  to  Him.  This  liberty 
is  God's  highest  gift  to  me,  and  I  must  take  heed  that  I  do  not  prove  unworthy 
of  His  trust. 

24.  Q.  How  may  we  know  God  ? 

A.  We  may  know  God  through  our  own  moral  character,  our  conscience, 
and  our  best  aspirations  and  hopes ;  through  nature  and  the  beauty  of  the  world 
which  he  has  made;  through  the  better  impulses  of  all  men,  and  the  enlight- 
ened imderstanding  and  holy  living  of  the  best  men;  through  the  Bible;  and 
through  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ." 

This  was  intended  for  pupils  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  age.  The  obvious 
assumption  is  that  what  the  clergyman  regards  as  fundamental  in  his  own 
thought-system  is  fimdamental  in  religious  instruction  and  therefore  should 
come  first. 


LIBERALISM  341 

(3)  Liberalism  cultivates  respect  for  man  as  man,  hut  it  does 
not  so  readily  appreciate  institutional  organizations  of  the  good 
u%ll,  such  as  the  church.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  tliat  those 
whose  liberties  were  wrested  from  the  church  by  hard  struggle 
should  show  little  inclination  toward  ecclesiastical  harness. 
But  respect  for  man  must  go  on  to  become  love  for  man,  and 
love  must  go  on  from  being  a  sentiment  to  become  a  policy  of 
action,  and  love  as  a  policy  of  action  requires  machinery  for 
co-operation  and  for  continuity.  Liberalism  should  go  on  to 
free  men's  hands  and  feet  as  well  as  heads — free  them  not  only 
in  the  sense  of  getting  them  loose,  but  also  in  the  sense  of  getting 
them  into  exercise.  It  would  seem  as  though  the  next  step 
is  to  transform  ecclesiastical  institutions  into  organs  of  a  free- 
dom that  is  more  complete  than  free  speech,  even  the  freedom 
of  love  in  co-operative  action.^ 

(4)  These  three  positive  educational  tendencies  of  liberalism 
can  be  reinforced,  and  the  correlative  defects  avoided,  by  identify- 
ing religious  freedom  with  the  positive  purpose  of  the  democracy  of 
God.  When  religious  instruction  has  as  its  definite  goal  the 
formation  of  an  intelligent  and  thoroughly  Christian  social  wjll, 
the  menace  of  intellectualism  will  be  removed.  It  will  be 
removed,  not  by  letting  down  intellectual  standards,  not  by 
putting  fences  around  inquiry,  but  by  putting  knowledge  into 
its  natural  and  proper  relation  to  life.  It  is,  I  believe,  the  uni- 
form experience  of  teachers  and  of  educational  institutions  that, 
all  in  all,  students  show  the  greatest  intellectual  zeal  when  they 
are  conscious  that  the  knowledge  that  they  seek  has  a  bearing 
upon  their  wider  purposes. 

Ethical  clarity  and  breadth,  moreover,  can  best  be  promoted 

1  The  ecclesiastical  limitations  of  negative  freedom  are  clearly  apparent  In 
the  following  words  of  ex-President  Eliot:  "The  genuine  Unitarian  values 
so  highly  his  liberty  of  thought  and  his  freedom  from  all  bonds  of  traditional 
and  gregarious  opinion  that,  as  a  rule,  he  is  not  willing  to  attempt  the  imposi- 
tion of  his  own  opinions  on  anybody  else,  not  even  on  his  cliildren.  He  is 
rarely  interested  in  foreign  missions  except  on  their  medical  and  anthropologi- 
cal side,  and  he  makes  a  poor  propagandist  at  home;  for  he  is  apt  to  hold  that 
nobody  ought  to  be  or  become  a  Unitarian  except  a  person  whose  own  mind 
and  will  work  in  such  a  way  that  he  cannot  help  being  or  becoming  a  Unitarian." 
(From  a  pamphlet,  The  Education  of  our  Boys  and  Girls,  published  by  the  Amer- 
ican Unitarian  Association.) 


342  LIBERALISM 


in  the  presence  of  live  social  issues.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  more 
or  less  popular  notion  that  in  order  to  see  a  moral  issue  clearly 
one  must  be  outside  it,  must  be  able  to  look  at  it  without  feel- 
ing it.  But  this  is  at  most  only  a  half-truth.  There  are  mat- 
ters, such  as  music  and  poetry,  in  which  we  do  not  even  begin 
to  understand  until  our  feelings  are  engaged.  So,  in  moral 
instruction  nothing  so  effectively  shakes  pupil  and  teacher 
out  of  moral  conventionality  as  to  face  the  actual,  present  strug- 
gle of  men  for  justice,  and  especially  to  take  some  part  in  it. 
" I  never  thought  of  this  before"  is  the  common  experience  when 
moral  reflection  steps  out  from  the  social  aloofness  of  generalities 
into  the  concreteness  of  a  moral  world  now  in  process  of  crea- 
tion. When  we  get  into  the  struggle  to  putjove  mto_effectiye 
action,  when  we  insist  upon  getting  results,  then  two  things  hap- 
pen: We  love  with  a  new  fervor,  and  we  see  the  nature  of  the 
issue  as  we  never  saw  it  before. 

It  is  then  that  the  necessity  and  the  possibilities  of  the 
church  fully  dawn  upon  us.  The  church  is  necessary  as  a 
preacher  of  radical  good  will,  which  is  human  participation  in 
a  divine  love  that,  though  it  may  be  repulsed,  will  not  be 
defeated.  The  church  is  necessary  as  a  feJJojSKship  of  those 
who,  aspiring  to  this  radical  good  will  in  their  own  conduct, 
need  the  support  of  like  aspiring  souls.  The  church  is  necessary 
as  axhampion  of  the  "  forlorn  hopes"  of  society,  the  social  causes 
that  the  "practical"  man  regards  as  visionary.  The  church  is 
necessary,  finally,  as  an  educator  of  children  in  these  ideals 
and  practices.  It  is  the  only  institution  of  large  scope  that  we 
can  have  any  hope  of  inducing  to  teach  democracy  in  this  thor- 
oughgoing fashion.  Liberalism  needs  the  church  for  the 
achievement  of  liberty  itself. 


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343 


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CLASSIFIED   BIBLIOGRAPHY  345 

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Hoben,  A.  "American  Democracy  and  the  Modern  Church."  Amer- 
ican Journal  of  Sociology,  January,  1917. 

Jefferson,  C.  E.  Christianity  and  Intenmtiorml  Peace.  New  York, 
1915. 

Lynch,  F.     The  Peace  Problem.    New  York,  1911. 

,  Challenge:     The  Church  and  the  New  World  Order.     New  York, 

1917. 

Macfarland,  C.  S.     Christian  Unity  at  Work.     New  York,  1913. 

Men  and  Religion  Movement,  Messages  of.     7  vols.     New  York,  1912. 

Nearing,  S.     Social  Religion.     New  York,  1913. 

Rauschenbusch,  W.     Christianizing  tlie  Social  Order.     New  York,  1912. 

Smith,  S.  G.     Democracy  and  the  Church.     New  York,  1912. 

Strayer,  P.  M.     Reconstruction  of  the  Church.     New  York,  1915. 

Tippy,  W.  M.     The  Church,  a  Comviunity  Force.     New  York,  1914. 

Trawick,  A.  M.  The  City  Church  and  its  Social  Mission.  New  York, 
1913. 

Vedder,  H.  C.  The  Gospel  of  Jesu^  Christ  and  the  Problems  of  De- 
mocracy.    New  York,  1914. 

Ward,  H.  F.     Poverty  and  Wealth.    New  York,  1915. 

,  The  Social  Creed  of  the  Churches. 

Ward,  H.  F.,  and  Edwards,  R.  H.  Christianizing  Community  Life. 
New  York,  1917. 


346  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


CHANGING   CONCEPTIONS   OF  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

For  conservative  types  of  thought,  see  the  volumes  of  Proceedings  of 
the  International  Sunday  School  Association,  published  under  various 
titles  by  the  Executive  Committee,  Chicago;  also  Sampey,  J.  R., 
The  International  Lesson  System,  the  History  of  its  Origin  and  Develop- 
ment. Nashville,  1911.  Compare  "Christian  Training  and  the  Re- 
vival," in  King,  H.  C,  Personal  and  Ideal  Elements  iri  Education.  New 
York,  1904. 

For  all  phases  of  the  reform  movement  in  religious  education,  con- 
sult the  files  of  the  magazine  Religious  Education,  and  also  the  volumes 
of  Proceedings  of  the  Religious  Education  Association  that  preceded 
the  magazine.  Several  valuable  summaries  of  current  movements  will 
be  found  in  the  "Annual  Surveys"  presented  at  the  conventions  of  the 
Association  and  printed  in  the  above  named  publications.  Consult  also 
the  files  of  the  Biblical  World. 

Certain  beginnings  of  the  reform  movement  in  Great  Britain  are 
evidenced  by  the  papers  and  resolutions  of  a  conference  called  by  the 
British  Sunday  School  Union.  See  Johnson,  F.  (editor),  Bible  Teaching 
by  Modern  Methods.     London,  1907. 

On  education  with  reference  to  the  coming  world  order,  see  the 
numbers  of  Religious  Education  throughout  the  year  1917.  See  also 
Ballantine,  W.  G,  Religious  Education  for  the  Coming  Social  Order. 
Pamphlet,  Boston,  Pilgrim  Press,  1917.  ' 

A  composite  picture  of  present  points  of  view  can  be  had  by  referring 
to  articles  in  Nelson's  Encyclopedia  of  Sunday  Schools  and  Religious 
Education.     3  vols.     New  York. 

Two  recent  utterances  on  the  relation  of  religious  education  to 
democracy  are:  Winchester,  B.  S.  "The  Churches  of  the  Federal 
Council  and  Week-Day  Religious  Instruction,"  a  report  made  to  the 
Federal  Council  at  St,  Louis,  December,  1916,  and  published  in  the  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Council;  and  a  pamphlet  by  Athearn,  W.  S.  "Relig- 
ious Education  and  American  Democracy,"  Maiden,  Mass.,  1916. 

D 

TEXT-BOOKS   THAT  HAVE  GROWN  OUT  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONCEPTION 
OF  THE   CHRISTIAN   LIFE 

In  this  list  only  such  texts  are  included  as  seem  to  conceive  of  Chris- 
tian education  as  a  process  of  socializing  conduct,  purposes,  and  thought. 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY  347 

in  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  Many  lessons  that  enforce  social  duties  are  con- 
tained, of  course,  in  texts  that  presuppose  one  or  another  prcsocial 
conception  of  Christian  experience,  but  these  texts  arc  not  mentioned. 

An  extended  annotated  bibliograpliy  of  Graded  Text-Books  for  the 
Modem  Sunday  School,  printed  in  1914,  can  be  had  upon  application 
to  the  Religious  Education  Association,  1032  East  ooth  Street,  Chicago. 
For  the  latest  list  in  each  of  the  graded  series,  WTite  to  the  various 
publishers  of  lesson  systems.  The  almost  constantly  growing  lists  of 
the  Association  Press,  of  the  National  Board  of  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Associations,  and  of  the  Missionary  Education  Movement 
should  be  consulted  also. 

Text-books  of  social  religion  adapted  to  classes  of  a<lults  and  of  older 
adolescents  are  relatively  numerous;  texts  for  early  and  middle  adoles- 
cence are  rare;  for  most  of  the  years  below  adolescence  non-existent, 

1.     For  Classes  of  Adults  and  of  Older  Adolescents 

Dole,  C.  F.     The  Citizen  and  the  Neighbor.     Boston,  1884. 
Douglass,  H.  P.     The  New  Home  Missions.     New  York,  1914. 
Edwards,  R.  H.     Christianity  and  Amusements.     New  York,  1915. 
Faunce,  W.  H.  P.     Social  Aspects  of  Foreign  Missions.     New  York. 

1914. 
Henderson,  C.  R.     Social  Duties  from  the  Christian  Point  of  View. 

Chicago,  1913. 
Jenks,  J.  W.     The  Political  and  Social  Significance  of  the  Teachings  of 

Jesus.     New  York,  1911. 
Kent,  C.  F.     The  Social  Teachings  of  the  Prophets  and  Jesus.     New 

York,  1917. 
Kent,  C;  F.,  and  Jenks,  J.  W.     The  Making  of  a  Nation.     New  York, 

1912. 

,   The  Testing  of  a  Nation's  Ideals.     New  York,   1914. 

Mathew^s,  S.     The  Individual  and  the  Social  Gospel.     New  York,  1914. 

,  The  Social  and  Ethical  Teaching  of  Jesus,     Chicago,  1913. 

,  The  Social  Gospel.     Philadelphia,  1910. 

Nordell,  P.  A.     The  Modern  Church.     New  York,  Scribner  Completely 

Graded  Series. 
Rauschenbusch,  W.     The  Social  Principles  of  Jesus.     New  York,  1916. 
Richardson,  N.  E.     The  Liquor  Problem.     New  York,  1915. 
,  International  Peace.     Pamphlet.     New  York.     Federal  Council 

of  Churches,  1915. 


348  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Scares,  T.  G.    Social  Institutions  and  Ideals  of  the  Bible.    New  York, 

1915. 
Strong,  J.     Studies  in  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom, 
,  New  series:    Studies  in  Social  Progress.    Published  periodically 

by  the  American  Institute  of  Social  Service,  New  York. 
Taft,  A.  B.     Community  Studies  for  Country  Districts.    New  York, 

1912. 
Trawick,  A.  M.     The  City  Church  and  its  Social  Mission.    New  York, 

1913. 
Ward,  H.  F.     The  Bible  and  Social  Living.    New  York,  etc.,  1917.    In- 
ternational Graded  Lessons. 
,    Poverty   and    Wealth.    New    York,  etc.,   1915.     International 

Graded  Lessons. 

,  The  Social  Creed  of  the  Churches.     New  York,  1912. 

Ward,  H.  F.,  and  Edwards,  R.  H.     Christianizing  Community  Life, 

New  York,  1917. 

2.     For  Classes  in  Early  and  Middle  Adolescence 

Gates,  H.  W.    Heroes  of  the  Faith.    New  York,  Scribner  Completely 

Graded  Series. 
Hunting,  H.  B.     Christian  Life  and  Conduct.    New  York,  Scribner 

Completely  Graded  Series. 
Jenks,  J.  W.     Life  Questions  of  High  School  Boys.     New  York,  1908. 
Weston,  S.  A.     The  World  as  a  Field  for  Christian  Service.    New  York, 

etc.,  International  Graded  Lessons. 

3.  For  Younger  Pupils 

Cutting,  Mrs.  Charles,  and  Merrett,  C.  C.  God  the  Loving  Father  and 
His  Children.  New  York,  Scribner  Completely  Graded  Series. 
For  primary  pupils. 

Dadmun,  F.  M.  Living  Together.  Boston,  1915,  the  •  new  Beacon 
Series.     For  primary  pupils. 

Everyland.  A  magazine  intended  to  widen  the  social  outlook  of  chil- 
dren toward  children  of  other  races.  New  York.  The  Missionary 
Education  Movement.     Adapted  to  primary  and  junior  pupils. 

Rankin,  M.  E.  A  Course  for  Beginners  in  Religious  Education,  with 
Lessons  for  One  Year  for  Children  Five  Years  of  Age.  New  York, 
1917.    Scribner  Completely  Graded  Series. 


CLASSIFIED   BIBLIOGRAPHY  349 

E 

CURRENT   PROGRESS   IN   THE   ORGANIZATION   AND   METHODS   OF   RE- 
LIGIOUS EDUCATION  IN  CHURCH,  DENOMINATION,  AND  COMMUNITY 

A  reform  movement  in  the  organization  and  methods  of  rcHgioii.s 
education  is  more  or  less  manifest  in  a  multitude  of  pul)lif'ations,  both 
books  and  periodicals.  The  present  short  list  is  intended  simply  to 
indicate  the  general  direction  of  this  movement.  The  reader  should 
not  fail  to  consult  the  files  of  Religious  Education  for  articles  not  here 
listed.  Whoever  desires  a  complete  picture  of  the  situation  in  Protes- 
tant circles  in  the  United  States  should  consult  in  addition  the  reports 
of  the  Sunday  School  Council  of  Evangelical  Denominations;  the 
Sunday-school  magazines  published  by  the  different  denominations; 
the  proceedings  and  the  various  circulars  of  the  International  Sunday 
School  Association;  the  reports  of  the  Sunday  School  Commission  of 
the  Federal  Council;  the  reports  of  denominational  commissions  and 
departments  of  religious  education  or  of  Sunday  schools;  the  teachers' 
books  in  each  of  the  graded  lesson  series;  the  newer  text-books  for 
teacher  training,  such  as  the  "Modern  Sunday  School  Manuals" 
(published  by  a  Methodist  and  Congregational  syndicate),  "The 
Worker  and  His  Work"  series  (published  by  the  Methodist  Book  Con- 
cern), and  the  handbooks  on  "Principles  and  Methods  of  Religious 
Education"  (published  by  the  University  of  Chicago  Press);  finally, 
the  constantly  enlarging  lists  of  the  denominational  and  other  pub- 
lishers of  religious  literature. 

Typical  of  the  endeavor  to  transform  the  Sunday  school  are  the 
following: 

Athearn,  W.  S.     The  Church  School.    Boston,  1914. 

Cope,  H.  F.     Efficiency  in  the  Sunday  School.     New  York,  1912. 

,  The  Evolution  of  the  Sunday  School.     Boston  and  New  York,  1911 

,  The  Modern  Sunday  School  and  its  Present-Day  Task.     New  York, 

1916. 

Evans,  H.  F.  The  Sunday  School  Building  and  its  Equipment.  Chi- 
cago, 1914. 

Frayser,  N.  L.     The  Sunday  School  and  Citizenship.    Cincinnati,  1915. 

Gates,  H.  W.     Recreation  and  the  Church.     Chicago,  1917. 

Hartshorne,  H.     Worship  in  the  Sunday  School.     New  York,  1913. 

,  Manual  for  Training  in  Worship.     New  York,  1915. 

,  The  Book  of  Worship  of  the  Church  School.     New  York,  1915. 


350  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hutchlns,  W.  N.  Graded  Social  Service  for  the  Sunday  School.  Chi- 
cago, 1914. 

Richardson,  N.  E.,  and  Loomis,  O.  E.  The  Boy  Scout  Movement  Ap' 
plied  by  the  Church.    New  York,  1915. 

The  movement  toward  a  community  conception  of  the  function  of 
religious  education  is  represented  by  the  following  publications.  Much 
material  will  be  added  by  the  1918  convention  of  the  Religious  Educa- 
tion Association,  which  is  to  take  this  as  its  topic. 

Athearn,  W.  S.  The  City  Institute  for  Religious  Teachers.  Chicago, 
1915. 

,  A  Community  System  of  Religious  Education.     Boston,  1917. 

,  Correlation  of  Church  Schools  and  Public  Schools.    Pamphlet. 

Maiden,  Mass.,  1917. 

Coe,  G.  A.  "A  General  View  of  the  Movement  for  Correlating  Re- 
ligious Education  with  Public  Instruction."  Religious  Education. 
XI  (1916),  109-122.  See  also  other  articles  in  this  and  the  pre- 
ceding volume  of  Religious  Education. 

"Co-operation  in  Christian  Education."  New  York,  Federal  Council 
Report,  1917. 

Wood,  C.  A.  School  and  College  Credit  for  Outside  Bible  Study.  Yoh- 
kers-on-Hudson,  1917. 

See  also  references  under  "Educational  Relations  between  State  and 
Church"  in  this  Bibliography. 

P 

THE  FAMILY  AS  AN  AGENCY  FOR  SOCIAL-RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

Consult  "A  Brief  Bibliography  on  Religious  Nurture  in  the  Home." 
Prepared  and  annotated  by  Moxcey,  M.  E.     Religious  Education,  X 
(1915),  610-612,  and  add  the  following  subsequent  works: 
Goodsell,  W.     A  History  of  the  Family  as  a  Social  and  Educational 

Institution.    New  York,  1915. 
Moxcey,  M.  E.    Girlhood  and  Character.    New  York,  1916. 

G 

THE  RELATION  OF  THE  STATE  TO  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

There  is  a  long  series  of  articles  and  allusions  in  the  Reports  of  the 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Education.    Of  especial  significance  are 


' 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY  351 

the  Reports  of  1888-9,  1894-5  (the  New  York  controversy),  1S9G-7 
(statistics  of  religious  exercises  in  public  schools),  1897-8  (the  New  York 
controversy,  etc.). 

The  United  States  Biu*eau  of  Education  Bulletin  No.  7  (1908)  re- 
ports important  judicial  decisions. 

On  the  New  York  controversy  see  also  Bourne,  W.  O.,  Ilittory  of  the 
Public  School  Society  of  the  City  of  New  York  (New  York,  1870);  a 
chapter  in  Burns,  J.  A.,  The  Catholic  School  System  in  the  United  States 
(New  York,  1908),  and  Hall,  A.  J.,  Religious  Ediication  in  the  Public 
Schools  of  the  State  and  City  of  New  York  (Chicago,  1914). 

The  celebrated  Edgerton  case  is  reported  in  76  Wisconsin  Reports, 
Conover,  177.  For  the  Cincinnati  case,  see  23  Ohio  Stats  Rejmrts, 
Granger,  21-254,  and  the  references  already  given  in  a  footnote  on 
page  255. 

The  constitutional  provisions,  laws,  and  court  decisions  are  brought 
together  in  a  convenient  volume  by  Brown,  S.  W.,  The  Secidarizaiion  of 
American  Education  (New  York,  1912).  The  same  author  brought 
the  matter  down  to  date  in  "Present  Legal  Status,  etc.,"  in  Religions 
Education,  XI  (1916),  103-108. 

On  the  history  of  this  matter  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  see  articles 
by  Mayo  in  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education 
for  1894-5. 

On  Massachusetts  history  see  the  first,  second,  and  twelfth  Annual 
Reports  of  Horace  Mann,  and  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education  for  1897-8. 

On  the  Catholic  position  see  a  speech  by  Archbishop  Ireland  in  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  National  Education  Association,  1890,  pp.  179^.;  Burns, 
J.  A.,  The  Catholic  School  System  in  the  United  States  (New  York,  1908); 
O'Connell,  C.  J.,  Christian  Education  (New  York,  1906);  McQuaid, 
B.  J.,  The  Public  School  Question  (Boston,  1876);  McCabe,  J.,  T-he 
Truth  about  Secular  Education  (London,  1906);  articles  on  "Schools," 
"Education,"  etc.,  in  the  Catholic  Encycloposdia,  and  the  Proceedings 
of  the  Catholic  Education  Association,  Columbus,  Ohio. 

A  discussion  that  occurred  in  the  National  Education  Association  in 
1889  is  printed  in  the  Proceedings  and  also  separately  under  the  title, 
Denominational  Schools  (Syracuse,  Bardeen,  1889). 

Arguments  for  entire  separation  of  religious  instruction  from  the 
public  schools  are  contained  in  Mead,  E.  D.,  The  Rxmmn  Catholic  Church 
and  the  Public  Schools  (Boston,  1890);  Spear,  S.  T.,  Religion  and  the 
State,  or  the  Bible  and  the  Public  Schools  (New  York,  1876);  Crooker, 
J.  T.,  Religious  Freedom  in  American  Education  (Boston,  1903);   and 


352  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Harris,  W.  T.,  "The  Separation  of  the  Church  from  Schools  Supported 
by  Public  Taxes"  {Proceedings  of  the  National  Education  Association^ 
1903). 

On  the  controversy  in  Great  Britain,  see  Riley,  A.,  and  others, 
The  Religious  Question  in  Public  Education  (London,  1911). 

For  practices  and  points  of  view  in  various  countries,  see  Spiller,  G., 
Moral  Education  in  Eighteen  Countries  (London,  1909);  Sadler,  M.  E., 
Moral  Instruction  and  Training  in  Schools,  2  vols.  (London,  1908); 
Proceedings  and  Papers  of  the  First  International  Moral  Education  Con- 
gress (London,  David  Nutt,  1908);  Memoires  sur  l' Education  Morale 
[the  second  Moral  Education  Congress]  (The  Hague,  Nijhoff,  1912); 
also  a  volume  of  Papers  Contributed  by  American  Writers  to  the  second 
Congress  (Brooklyn,  1912). 

Consult,  on  the  whole  topic,  the  indices  of  Religious  Education,  and 
see  especially  the  number  for  February,  1911,  and  a  bibliography  (for 
free  distribution)  of  *' Instruction  in  Religion  in  Relation  to  Public  Ed- 
ucation," which  was  published  in  Vol.  X  (1915),  pp.  613-624.  Add  to 
this  bibliography  the  subsequently  published  article  by  Sheridan,  H.  J., 
*' Religious  Education  and  the  Public  Schools  of  Ontario,"  in  Religious 
Education,  XII  (1917),  15-19,  and  the  prize  essay  by  Rugh,  C.  E.,  The 
Essential  Place  of  Religion  in  Education.  Published  by  the  National 
Education  Association,  Ann  Arbor,  1916. 

On  the  relations  between  the  public  schools  and  the  movement  for 
week-day  religious  instruction  by  the  churches,  see  Religious  Educa- 
tion, Vol.  XII. 

H 

THE   SOCIAL   CAPACITIES   OF   CHILDREN 

On  the  instinctive  endowment  of  man,  see: 

McDougall,  W.     Introduction  to  Social  Psychology.    Boston,  1909. 

Thorndike,  E.  L.  The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  being  Vol.  I  of  his 
Educational  Psychology.  New  York,  1913.  A  brief  summary  of 
original  traits  is  given  in  his  Education.  New  York,  1912,  Chap- 
ter V.    See  also  his  Educational  Psychology,  Briefer  Course. 

Representative  of  the  recapitulation  theory  are: 

Bolton,  F.  E.     Principles  of  Education.    New  York,  1910,  Chapters 

IV,  V,  VI. 
Fiske,  G.  W.    Boy  Life  and  Self-Government.    New  York,  1910. 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY  353 

Hall,  G.  S.  Educational  Problems.  2  vols.  New  York,  1911,  espe- 
cially Chapter  IV,  "The  Religious  Training  of  Children  and  the 
Sunday  School,"  and  Chapter  V,  "Moral  Education." 

Partridge,  G.  E.  Genetic  Philosophy  of  Education.  New  York,  1912. 
This  work  is  an  epitome  of  the  educational  theories  of  G.  Stanley 
Hall.  See  especially  pp.  50-58,  and  Chapter  XII,  "Religious 
Education." 

On  the  limitations  of  the  recapitulation  theory,  see: 

Davidson,  P.  E.     The  Recapitidation   Theory  and  Human  Infancy. 

New  York,  1914.     Note  his  bibliography. 
National  Herbart  Society,  First  and  Second  Year  Books.    Chicago,  1895, 

1896. 
Thorndike,  E.  L.     The  Original  Nature  of  Man,  being  Vol.  I  of  his 

Educational  Psychology.    New  York,  1913. 

For  various  points  of  view  with  respect  to  childhood  religion,  the 
conversion  of  children,  etc.,  see: 

Bonner,  C.     TJw  Christ,  the  Church,  and  the  Child.    London,  1911. 

Dawson.  G.  E.     The  Child  and  His  Religion.    Chicago,  1909. 

Koons,  W.  G.     The  Child's  Religious  Life.    New  York,  1903. 

Leuba,  J.  H.  "Children's  Conceptions  of  God  and  Religious  Educa- 
tion."   Religious  Education,  XII  (1917),  5-15. 

Mumford,  E.  E.  R.  The  Dawn  of  Religion  in  the  Mind  of  the  Child. 
London,  1915. 

RisheU,  C.  W.     The  Child  as  God's  Child.    New  York,  1904. 

Stephens,  T.  (editor).     The  Child  and  Religion.    New  York,  1905. 

St.  John,  E.  P.  Child  Nature  and  Child  Nurture.  Boston,  1911.  An 
outline  for  study  classes,  with  bibhographies. 

I 

THEORIES  OF  METHOD  IN  SOCIAL  INSTRUCTION  AND  TRAININQ 

Bagley,  W.  C.     The  Educative  Process.    New  York,  1910. 

,  School  Discipline.    New  York,  1914. 

Cabot,  E.  L.     "Methods  of  Ethical  Teaching."    Religious  Education, 

VI  (1911),  542. 
Chubb,  P.    "Direct  Moral  Education."  Religious  Educaiixm,  II  (1907), 

164. 


354  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Coe,  G.  A.     "Virtue  and  the  Virtues."     Proceedings  of  the  National 

Education  Association,  1911;   printed  also  in  Religums  Education, 

VI  (1911),  486. 
Dewey,  J.     Moral  Principles  in  Education.    Boston,  1910. 

,  Democracy  and  Education.    New  York,  1916. 

Gould,  F.  J.    Moral  Instruction:    Its  Theory  and  Practice,    London, 

1913. 
Griggs,  E.  H.     Moral  Education.    New  York,  1904. 
Healy,  W.     Honesty:  A  Study  of  Causes  and  Treatment  of  Dishonesty 

among  Children.     Indianapolis,  1915. 
Kirkpatrick,  E.  A.     The  Individunl  in  the  Making.    Boston,  1911. 

y  The  Use  of  Money.     Indianapolis,  1915. 

McMurry,  F.  M.     Elementary  School  Standards.    Yonkers-on-Hudson, 

1914. 

,  How  to  Study.    Boston,  1909. 

Moxcey,  M.  E.     Girlhood  and  CJiarader.    New  York,  1916. 
Neumann,  H.     "Some  Misconceptions  of  Moral  Education."     One  of 

the  Papers  by  American  Writers  to  the  Second  International  Moral 

Education  Congress. 
Palmer,  G.  H.     Ethical  and  Moral  Instruction  in  Schools.    Boston,  1899. 
Rugh,  C.  E.,  and  others.     Moral  Training  in  Public  Schools.    Boston, 

1907. 
Shand,  A.  F.     The  Foundations  of  Character.    London,  1914. 
Sharpe,    F.    C.     "The    Development    of   Moral    Thoughtfulness   in 

Schools."    One  of  the  Papers  by  American  Writers  to  the  Second 

International  Moral  Education  Congress. 
Sheldon,  W.  L.     An  Ethical  Sunday  School.    London,  1900. 
Sneath,  E.  H.,  and  Hodges,  G.     Moral  Training  in  the  School  and  Home, 

New  York,  1913. 
Strayer,  G.  H.  A  Short  Course  in  the  Teaching  Process.  New  York,  1912. 
Swift,  E.  J.     Learning  and  Doing.     Indianapolis,  1914. 
Taylor,  C.  K.     The  Moral  Education  of  School  Children.    Philadelphia, 

1912. 
Tufts,  J.  H.     "How  Far  is  Formal  Systematic  Instruction  Desirable 

in  Moral  Training  in  Schools?"    Religious  Education,  vol.  IH, 

October,  1908,  p.  121  and  /. 

On  transfer  of  training,  a  bibliography  of  68  titles  will  be  found  in 
Hewins,  N.  P.     The  Doctrine  of  Formal  Discipline  in  the  Light  of  Ex- 


CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY  355 

perimerdal   Investigation.    Baltimore,    1916.     For   statements   of   the 
problem,  and  for  the  chief  points  of  view,  see: 

Bagley,  W.  C.     The  Educative  Process.    New  York,  1910. 

Colvin,  S.  S.  "Some  Facts  in  Partial  Justification  of  the  So-called 
Dogma  of  Formal  Discipline."  Pamphlet,  Bulletin  No.  2  of  the 
University  of  Illinois  School  of  Education.     1910. 

O'Shea,  M.  V.     Edux^ation  as  Adjustment.     New  York,  1905. 

A  symposium  by  Angell,  Pillsbury,  and  Judd,  in  the  Educational  Re- 
view, June,  1908. 

Thorndike  and  Woodworth.  "The  Influence  of  Improvement  in  One 
Mental  Function  upon  the  Efficiency  of  Other  Functions." 
Psychological  Renew,  Will,  24:7-2Ql;  348-395;  553-564. 


INDEX 

Note. — This  Index  contains  the  names  of  authors  who  are 
referred  to  in  the  text.  For  other  names  see  the  Classified 
Bibliography. 


Academies,  Denominational,  267  f. 
Activities,     Education     throughi,  81 ; 

90;  240;  272  f.;  310  f.;  see  also 

Practice,  Social,  as  a  Method  of 

Social  Education. 
Adjustment,  Social,  as  an  aim  in  edu- 
cation, 16. 
Adolescence,  148  f.,  et  passim;  157- 

160;    180;    319;    332. 
Aims,   The,   of  Christian  education. 

Chapter  V;   76  f. 
Albro,  J.  A.,  100  (note  2). 
American  Simday  School  Union,  The, 

286. 
Ames,  E.  S.,  148  f. 
Amusements,  221. 
Anger,  122;   130;   176. 
Animism,  144  f. 
Antisocial   instincts,   habits,    etc., 

165  ff. 
AppUcation,  Making  the,  97. 
Approval     and     disapproval,      122; 

171  fl. 
Aristotle,  166. 
Ari;,  69. 

Art  museums,  4. 
Asceticism,  56. 
Authority  in  education,  42flf.;    85; 

172;     193;     261;     296  f.;    305; 

335  f. 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  86  (note). 

Barnes,  E.,  144. 

Bedales  School,  21. 

Bible,  The,  and  state  schools,  250  flf . ; 

257;   260 fl. 
BibUcal  material  in  the  curriculum, 

67  f.;     98;     103;     109;     113  ff.; 

222;   305  f.;    313  fl. 
Bibliography,  Classified,  343-354. 


Boys: 

Defective  observation  of,  156 
Segregation  from  girls,  162;   209  f. 
Boys'  clubs,  162  f.;    231;    232. 

Brotherly  love.  Instinctive  roots  of, 
126  fl. 

Brown,  W.  A.,  227  (note). 

BushneU,  H.,  145. 

Catechisms,  316;   340  (note). 
Catechumens,  Classes  of,  231. 
Catholicism  (Roman),  \Tii;  65;  256  f.; 

Chapter  XX;  304  fl. 
Causality,  144. 
Character,  53  f . ;  184  ff . 
Children: 

And  the  church,  110  ff. 
And  social  issues,  60  f.;   91  (note). 
Child  evangelism,  see  Evangelism. 
Child  labor.  14;   45;    114;    220. 
Child   reUgion,    75;     101  f.;     108; 

142-146;    181. 
Children's    faith    and     credulity. 

Chapter  XI. 
Children's  faults  and  limitations. 

Chapter  XII;   168  fl. 
Children's  interests.  109  f. ;   Chap- 
ter X;    142  ff.;    318  f. 
Children's  plasticity.  226. 
Children's  standards,  106  fl. 
Observing  children.  272. 
Christ,  Social    redemption    through, 
6;    Leading  children  to,  309  fl.; 
see  also  Decision  Days  and  Evan- 
gelism. 
Christian  experience,  74  fl.;   81;   98; 
306 ;  327  f . ;  329  f . ;  see  also  Con- 
version. 
Christianizing  education.  4;  6;  75. 


357 


358 


INDEX 


Christian  religion,  The,"  vii;    54fif.; 

92  f . ;  249  f . ;  268  f . ;  284  f . ;  333  f. 
Christian  unity,  91  f.;  281  f. 
Church,  The,  and  education,  6;  8f.; 

14;    17;    28;    53;    62;    Chapter 

VIII;    98;    110;    146;    Chapter 

XVI;      Chapter     XVII;      265; 

317  f.;    323;    329  f.;    332;   341  f. 
Clubs  of  boys  and  of  giris,  162  f. ;  231 ; 

232 
Coe,    G.    A.,   40    (note);     123;     135 

(note);   137    (note);  142  (note); 

148   (note  1);    181    (note);  244 

(note). 
Colleges,      Denominational,      267  f.; 

273  flf.;  280  f. 
"Common"  people,  The,  226  f. 
Community,  The,  and  education,  20; 

36;    221;    229;    323. 
Conscience,  172  f. 
Continuity  of  child  growth,   151  flf.; 

179. 
Conversion,  181  f.;  226;  324  f.;  327; 

330. 
Creed,  Educational  use  of  the,  316; 

319. 
Criminality,  158. 
Crowd,  The.  38 £F.;   47;    108  (note); 

132. 
Cultvire  epochs,  152. 
Curiosity,  144. 
Curriculiun,  The,  21  flf.;  66-69;  81  f.; 

Chapter  IX;   196  f. 

Davidson,  P.  E.,  155  (note  3). 

Davidson,  T.,  32  f. 

Dawson,  G.  E.,  144. 

Decision  days,  77  f.;  331  flC.;  see  also 

Evangelism. 
Deliberative  group.  The,  38  ff.;   175; 

188;   210;   212;   312. 
Democracy,  16;    54  flf.;    lllf.;    168; 

175;    185  f.;    210  fl.;    259;    262; 

305;   313  flf.;   325  f.;   338. 
Denominations,    ReUgious,    Chapter 

XVIII;    Chapter  XIX;    291  f.; 

see  also  Sectarianism. 
Departments  of  religious  education. 

Denominational,  Chapter  XVIII. 
Depravity,  169  flf. 

Devotional  life.  The,  see  Worship. 
Dewey,  J.,  x. 
"  Direct"  methods  of  teaching  morals, 

190  flf. 
Directors  of  religious  education,  278; 

279;   see  also  Supervision  of  Re- 
ligious Education. 
Dispositions,  Children's,  133  f. 


Dogmas,  Appreciation  of,  69. 
Dogmatism,  28;  65;  66;  74  flf.;   144; 

169;  262;  296  f.;  Chapter  XXI; 

317;   320  f.;   327;   335  f.;   338  f. 
Du  Bois,  P.,  128  (note). 

Ecclesiasticism,  see  Church,  The,  and 
Education. 

Economic  order.  The,  55;  105; 
217  flf.;   245. 

Editors  as  educators,  279. 

Education,  Nature  of ,  13  f.;  182;  the 
educative  process,  18  flf. ;  Chap- 
ter VII. 

Efficiency,  see  Social  Phases  of  Educa- 
tion. 

Egoism,  see  Selfishness. 

EUot,  C.  W.,  341  (note). 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  32;    87;   94. 

Equality  of  the  sexes,  211. 

Ethics,  Theories  of,  42. 

Eugenics  and  education,  29  f.;  33; 
221. 

Evangelism,  77  f.;  182  f.;  268;  see 
also  Conversion. 

Evolution,  31  flf.;   167. 

Faith.  57;   83  f.;    141;   310  f. 
Family,  The,  5;   14;  70  f.;  80  f.;  98; 

105;    Chapter  XV.;    231;    240- 

243. 
Fear,  144. 
Federal   Council  of  Churches,  The, 

285  f. 
Feeney,  B.,  296  (note). 
Fellowship  as  a  process  in  education, 

88  f.;    90;    151;    175  f.;   319  f. 
Fichte,  J.  H.,  26. 
Fihal  affection,  127  f. 
Finances  of  the  church  school,  245  flf. 
Freedom  of  purpose,  336-338. 
Freedom  of  the  child,  26. 
Freedom  of  thought  and  of  speech, 

47    (note);  249;  290;  312;  335; 

337  f. 
Freedom.  Political,  27;  47;  249;  312. 
Fremantle,  W.  H.,  6. 
Froebel,  27;   80. 
Future  hfe,  The,  83. 

Gangs  of  Boys,  154. 

Genetic  view  of  mind.  The,  31. 

German  education,  30  (note). 

Girls,  156;    161  f.;    209  f.;    231. 

Giving,  Training  in,  246  f. 

God,  6;  7;  54  f.;   73;  95;   112;   164; 

268;    272;    311  f.;    313  ff.;    328. 
Gradation  of  curriculum  material,  66 ; 

162;    196  f.;    306  ff. 


INDEX 


359 


Gratitude,  143  f. 

Greed.  122;   129, 

Green,  T.  H.,  37. 

Gregariousness,  122. 

Growth  as  an  aim  of  education,  55; 
64;  66;  71  fl.;  98;  as  determin- 
ing the  order  and  the  process, 
105  ff.;  147  fl.,  162;  179;  196  f.; 
306  fl.;  331  fl. 

Guilt,  172. 

Habit  and  habit-formation,  32;    69; 

133  f.;  151  f.;  159  fl.;  165;  170  f.; 

189;  307. 
HaU,  G.  S.,  148. 
Halpin,  E.  A.,  298  (notes  1  and  2); 

299  (note);   301  (notes  1  and  2). 
Health,  169  fl.;  221. 
Hegel,  26. 
Herbart,  27. 
Hours  of  labor,  220. 
Housing  problem,  The,  221. 
Hiunan  nature,  Chapter  X;  its  modi- 

flabiUty,  135  fl. 
Hunting  instinct,  The,  122;    130, 

Idealism,    metaphysical,    26;     32  f.; 

35;    Social,  see  Social  Idealism. 
Ideals  and  ideaUzing,  152. 
Imagination,  115  f.;    196;    198  ff. 
Imitation,  124;    139;    170;    189. 
Income  and  education,  220. 
Indignation,  143  f. 
"Indirect"     methods     of     teaching 

morals,  190  fl. 
Indidivual,  What  is  an?  38;    56  f.; 

85;   the  individual  as  an  end  in 

education,  27;   29;  35;   Chapter 

IV;   53;   221. 
Individualism,  38;    47  f.;    56  f.;    99; 

268  f.;    275;    277;   284. 
Industrial    conditions    as    affecting 

education,  33  f. 
Industrial    training,    see    Vocational 

Education. 
Initiation,  Education  as,  89. 
Initiative,  213. 
Instinct   and    education,    32  f.;     36; 

41;    50;    120  fl.;    129  fl.;    133  f.; 

141  fl.;  151;  161;  165;  170;  172. 
Instruction  as  a  part  of  education, 

53;    64  f.;    82;    310  f. 
InteUectualism  in  religious  education, 

74  fl.;    193;    296;    305  f.;    338  fl. 
Interest  and  education,  9;   110;   154. 
International  Sunday  School  Associa- 
tion, The,  286  f. 


Interruptions  of  the  educational  pro- 
gram, 77  f. 
Introspection,  62. 

Jealoasy.  122. 

Jesus.  54  f.;  75;  94;   145;  193;  213; 

314  f. 
Justice.  34;  45;  48;  68  ff.;  93  f.;  126- 

144;    158;    176;    208-210. 
Juvenile  courts,  14;  45. 

Kant,  26;  31. 
King,  I.,  144  (note  3). 
Kingdom  of  God,  see  Democracy. 
Knowledge  and  life,  21  ff. 
Knowledge  as  an  end  in  education, 
41;  64. 

Labor,  Education  through,  see  Ac- 
tivities, Education  through,  and 
Practice,  Social,  as  a  Method  of 
Social  Education. 

Labor  problem.  The.  220. 

Landerziehungsheim,  The,  21. 

Lay  workers  in  religious  education, 
279  f. 

Leaders  in  religious  education,  Pro- 
ducing, 270  ff.    <, 

Learning  process.  The,  Chapter  XIV. 

Liberalism,  Educational  tendencies 
of.  Chapter  XXIV. 

Literature,  Appreciation  of,  69. 

Love,  Christian,  7;  55  f.;  57;  68 
72;  75  f.;  79  f.;  83  f.;  93  f. 
lllf.;  126  ff.;  168;  178;  210 
227;  265;  268;  284  f.;  315 
328. 


105;     158;     216; 


Mackintosh,  H.  R.,  329  (note). 

Mann,  H.,  27. 

Marriage,    70  f . 
223  f. 

MarshaU,  H.  R.,  131  (note). 

Mastery  and  submission,  122;    129  f. 

McDougaU,  W.,  121;    143. 

Men  and  women,  209  f.;   211. 

Methods  of  teaching  morals,  190  ff. 

Ministry,  The,  and  religious  educa- 
tion, 230  f . ;    274  f. ;  277  f. 

Missionary     Education    Movement, 
The,  287  f. 

Missions,  82;    98;    114;    231;    280; 
281. 

Moral  character,  63  f.;    184-186. 

Moral  hypersensitiveness,  187. 

Moral  priggery,  186. 

Moral  self-consciousness,  187  ff. 

Moral  snobbery,  186. 


360 


INDEX 


Moralizing,  191;  201. 

Motives,  Education  of,  41  f.;    66  f.; 

71flf.;  98. 
Mumford,  E.  E.  R.,  84. 
Mysticism,  57. 

Nationalism,  ix ;  38  (note) ;  59. 
Nature,  Appreciation  of,  69. 
Nature,  Education  as  a  part  of,  32. 

Oberly,  H.  H.,  320  (note). 
Observation   as   an   element   in   the 

training  of  workers,  272. 
Occupations,     Preparation    for,    see 

Vocational  Education. 
Organized  classes,  81. 
Outline  courses.  Faults  of,  273. 

Parenthood  and  the  parental  instinct, 
123  ff.;  129;  131  f.;  142  fl.; 
156;    157;    223  f.;    271. 

Parochial  schools,  257  fl. 

Pastor,  The,  and  reUgious  education, 
230  f.;    274  f.;    277  f. 

Patriotism,  59. 

Personality  of  the  teacher,  see 
Teacher,  The. 

Persons,  Value  of,  44  f.;  80;  102  fl.; 
176  f.;    197  f. 

Pestalozzi,  27. 

Philosophy,  Appreciation  of,  69. 

Philosophy  of  the  new  education, 
Chapter  III. 

Physiological  factors  in  conduct, 
169  fl. 

Pity,  126;    144. 

Play,  playgi-ounds,  and  the  play- 
groimd  movement,  14;  20;  44 
(note  1);   89;    105  fl.;   221. 

Pleasure  and  pain  as  factors  in  edu- 
cation, 89;  151;  165  f.;  170; 
173  f;    177  f.;   203;    214. 

Political  philosophy  and  education, 
30  f. 

Practice,  Social,  as  a  method  of  so- 
cial education,  4;  69  f.;  166; 
193  f.;    212  f.;    215  f. 

Pragmatism  and  education,  34  fl. 

Prayer,  see  Worship. 

Priesthood,  96;    226. 

Professional  workers  in  religious  ed- 
ucation, 277  fl. 

Professorship  of  religious  education. 
The,  280  f. 

Property,  The  right  of,  217  fl. 

Prophetism,  54;    256  f. 

Protestantism,  viii;  28;  65;  90; 
256  f.;  260  f.;  287;  Chapters 
XXI-XXIV. 


Psychology  and  education,  29 ;  34  f. ; 

109  f.;    168  fl.;    192. 
Psychotherapy,  180  (note). 
Public  libraries,  14. 
Public  schools,  see  State  Schools. 
Pugnacity,  122;    130. 
Pimishments,  176  fl. 

Race  betterment  as  an  aim  of  educa- 
tion, 32. 
Recapitulation  theory,  The,   149  fl. ; 

181. 
Recitation,  The,  20. 
Reflection  as  an  aim  in  education,  48; 

98;    152;    190;    193. 
Religion,  can  it  be  taught  ?  74  fl. 
Religion  and  sectarianism,  255  fl. 
Religious  Education  Association,  The, 

285. 
Retaliation,  176. 
Revivals,  see  Evangelism. 
Ritschlian    movement    in    theology. 

The,  35. 
RituaUsm,  Educational  tendencies  of. 

Chapter  XXII. 
Rivah-y,  122;    129. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  27. 
Rules,  Educational  use  of,  42  fl.;  48; 

172;   312. 

Saloon,  The,  221. 

Salvation,  6;    53;   56;   97. 

Schelhng,  26. 

School  life  as  a  phase  of  education; 

108;    see  also  State  Schools. 
Scientific  movement,  The,  and  edu- 
cation, 28  fl.;  35;  169;  227;  267; 

290. 
Secretaries,  Denominational,  279  f. 
Secretaries,  Sunday-school,  238. 
Sectarianism,      255  fl.;     260;      284; 

291  f. 
Sedgwick,  A.,  155  (note). 
Self-consciousness    and    self-control, 

121;    134  f.;    187-190;    226. 
Self-expression,  26. 
Self-government,  19;    175;    240. 
Self-involution,   44    (note   2);    61  f.; 

187-190. 
Selfishness,  148;   Chapter  XIII;  328. 
Self-reaUzation,  15;    56  f. 
Self-sacrifice,  48;    50. 
Sermons  to  children,  201  f.;    231. 
Sex,  sex  attraction,  and  sex  intruo 

tion,  123;   128;   132;   153;  155  f.; 

160  f.;    167;    211;    223  fl. 
Shand,  A.  F.,  143. 
Sin,  Chapter  XIII;    328. 


INDEX 


3G1 


Skill  as  an  aim  in  education,  41, 
Sloan,  P.  J.,  303  (note). 
"Social,"  Meaning  of,  38  ff. 
Social  idealism,  37;    55  fl.;    64;    185. 
Social  phases  of  education: 
Society  the  educator,  14  f. 
Social  aims  of  education:    Adjust- 
ment and  efficiency,   16;    29;;: 
democracy,     54  fif. ;      justice, 
58  f.;    welfare,  58;     world-so- 
ciety, 59  f. ;  social  reconstruc- 
tion, 18;   230. 
Social  classes,  168. 
Social  heredity,  86;    194. 
Social  nature  of  man.  The,  Chapter 

X. 
Social  process  in  education.  The, 

18  f.;    42;    80  fif.;    90;    240. 
Social  strains,  33  f. ;   48;   54, 
Social   theory   of  education   sum- 
marized, 23  f. 
Social  vice,  225. 
Social     pvirpose,     Effect     of,     upon 

churches,  284  fif. 
Social    significance    of   the    modern 

state,  The,  248  flf. 
Social  tendencies  of  dogmatic  Protes- 
tantism,    311  flf.;     of    ritualism, 
322  f . ;    of  evangelicalLsm,  325  f . 
Society  and  the  church,  226  flf. 
Socrates,  166. 
"Soft  pedagogy,"  49  f. 
Standards    in    education,    36;     231; 

234;    238  flf. 
State,  The,  and  the  individual,  46  f . ; 
and  the  church.  Chapter  XVII; 
State  schools,  \iii;  8;  23;  36;  Chapter 

XVII. 
Stories    as    a    means    of   education, 

198  flf. 
Stout,  G.  F.,  143  (note  1). 
Suggestion  as  a  process  in  education, 
87  f.;  96;  116;  139  f.;  189;  191. 
Sunday    school,    The,     3f.;    5;    221; 
Chapter  XVI;  267;  327;  329  flf.; 
333. 
Simday  School  Council,  The,  286. 
Sunday  school  superintendent.  The, 

236  f. 
Supervision    of   religious    education, 

234  flf. 
Surveys,  community,  221, 
Swickerath,  R.,  297  (note  1). 

Tagore,  R.,  218  (note). 

Teacher,  The,  19;  65;  78  f.;  80;  97; 

234;     238;     255  f.;    262;    270  flf.; 

305. 


Teacher  training,  see  Training  of 
Workers. 

Tender  regard  as  a  phase  of  society, 
126. 

Tcrtullian,  145. 

Tests  of  education,  .36;    2:M;    238  ff. 

Theological  semmaries,  27S  f. ;  2H()  f. ; 
290  flf. 

Theology.  35. 

Theory.  Nature  of,  Clwptcr  I. 

Thomdike,  E.  L.,  121;  126;  132; 
155  (notes  2  and  :i). 

Thought  and  action,  194  ir. ;  scm>  also 
Reflcciion  as  an  Aim  in  Educa- 
tion. 

Time-problem,  The,  in  religioiis  edu- 
cation. 243-245. 

Todd,  J.,  101  (note  1). 

Toynbec,  A.,  37. 

Training  of  workers,  28;  79  f.; 
270  flf.;    290  ff. 

Training-schools  for  lay  workers. 
279  f. 

Transfer  of  training.  202  ff. 

Tui'ning  points  in  character,  178  ff. 

Tylor's  view  of  animism,  145. 

UnemplojTnent,  221. 

Unfolding,  Education  as,  15;    53. 

Union  of  the  churches,  see  Christian 

Unity. 
Universities  and  religious  education, 

289  ff. 

Vice,  22;   225. 

Virtues,  Study  of  the,  104  f.;    194  ff. 
Vocational  education,  8;    16  f.;    31; 
33;   41;   62  f.;   70;    105;   221. 

Wage-workers,  33  f. 

War,  ix;    59  f.;    130  f.;    168. 

Week-day  religious  instruction, 
231  f.;   244. 

Will,  Education  of  the,  56;    79. 

Women.  The  place  of,  in  the  demo- 
cracy of  God,  70  f.;  130;  161; 
209  f. 

World-society  as  an  aim  of  religious 
education,  59  f. 

Worship  and  its  placojn  education, 
73:  77;  84;  92-W98;  221  ff.; 
232;   271;   316  f.;   321  ff. 

Young  Men's  and  Young  Women's 
Christian  Associations,  The,  154; 
268. 

Young  People's  Societies,  231;  232; 
267. 


55389Tfl  ^s 

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